The Sith and the Stark
by snooginslayer
Summary: Arya Stark is recruited by Darth Maul to help him in his quest to destroy both the Sith and the Jedi. Arya, who is fueled by revenge, is excited by the prospect of learning new ways to crush her enemies. *I pull from Star Wars canon and legends, and both tv and books for Game of Thrones. I will post new chapters weekly. This is all just for fun.
1. The Lights in the Trees

Arya Stark looked behind her one last time and smiled. It felt good to finally be the one with power. Her gaze settled on the entrance to the great hall at the Twins. The entrance looked completely innocuous, inviting almost. But Arya knew what lay inside; dozens of freshly poisoned Frey corpses, some probably still twitching as the last bits of life seeped out of them. She let loose a sigh of contentment. House Frey was no more. Like House Hoare of Herrenhal so many years ago, House Frey would be shattered beyond repair; any stragglers turned to beggars in this increasingly harsh land. Their house may be remembered, but only for their betrayal and eventual doom. It would be centuries before anyone even thought about violating the guest right again. Arya turned away from the hall, never wanting to see it again. From the moment her mother and brother had been betrayed and slaughtered, the Twins had been nothing but a place of death and corruption with her own massacre being the horrible capstone to this now haunted place.

She began to walk towards the forests leading away from the Twins and instantly noticed something was wrong. A light, brighter and higher than she had ever seen, was slowly hovering above the trees. The light felt wrong, somehow. It was a shade of red she had never seen, and it glowed ominously through the tallest branches. Suddenly the light began to lower itself towards the ground. Thinking quickly, Arya threw off her pack and started rummaging around for something particular. A face. An older face. Whatever that light was, she preferred to look as intimidating as possible to confront it. She chose a burly man's face that she had cut off one of the guards when she had originally infiltrated the Twins to massacre the entire Frey bloodline. She gained some size and stature, still not quite understanding the magic that changed herself when she wore the face. Once her transformation was complete she crept towards the trees to see what the mysterious light was.

Staying low in the bushes, Arya was finally able to get a good look at the light source, and what she saw baffled her. It was some sort of tall black structure, but not nearly tall enough to have produced light above the tree tops. Also, Arya had come through this way before and this structure had definitely not been there then. She felt a chill down her spine and a twinge of fear that she hadn't felt since before she had trained at the temple of the Many-Faced God. She hated being afraid. She quickly forced her fear back down and was about to come out of the bushes to investigate when a sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the structure. The sliver of light got bigger and bigger until an entire rectangle of light with a ramp leading out from it could be seen. Arya jumped back behind the bushes and watched as a robed figure walked down the ramp into the clearing in front of the structure. The figure surveyed the area slowly and eventually its gaze fixed on one point; the spot where Arya was hiding. There was no way he could know where she was Arya thought, but that thought quickly evaporated as the figure spoke.

"Come out of the bushes child." It said in a rough voice lacking any emotion.

Arya's stomach dropped. Not only did it know where she was, it had called her child, even while she wore the burly guards face.

"Don't be afraid. You are of interest to me and in no danger. Come out. Now." The robed figure held out its hand as if it were reaching for her. She thought about running, but at that moment she felt herself become weightless, like some invisible creature had picked her up. She hovered above the ground for a moment before being lurched forward. She landed gently in front of the robed figure and tried standing up from her kneeling position but started to panic when she found she was unable to. It was as if some unseen force held her to the ground.

"I mean you know ill will child." The figure lowered its hand and she felt the weight lift off her. Every instinct in her body told her to run, but somehow she knew that it wouldn't matter. So, she stood up quietly and looked the hooded figure in the face. Because of the hood, shadows obscured its features, and there was nothing to be seen.

"Take off your mask child" he commanded.

 _So, he knows about the many faces._ Arya thought. _Interesting._ She put her hand to her face and pulled away. The masked face slid off her own and returned her form to that of Arya Stark. She looked up defiantly. She wouldn't allow herself to be afraid. She'd been held captive, beaten, and forgotten as a scared and weak little girl. But not anymore. She had been trained by the best swordsmen in Seven Kingdoms. She had traveled with one of the most hardened and ruthless men she had ever known, and she had trained with deadliest assassins in the world. She was a little girl in form only. But scared and weak? May the old gods and the new save anyone if they made that assumption.

"Remove your hood" Arya said to the figure.

She heard a hiss, and then it responded, "As you wish." The figure threw the hood back and looked down at her. Arya felt her stomach knot up. She had seen many horrible things during the past few years and not much frightened her anymore, but what stood before her terrified her. It was a man. At least, she thought it was a man, or at least something human in form. He was bald and clean shaven, and his entire head was decorated in red and black markings. A ring of horns adorned his brow, almost like a crown. But what terrified her most were his eyes. His irises were fractured shades of red and yellow, and in them was pure hatred and malice. He looked at her and she shrunk away.

"Why do you fear me?" The figure asked, "Did you not just come from that place of death?" He pointed towards the fortress at the Twins. "I know it was you who caused that death." It was a statement, not a question.

"How could you know I…" Arya trailed off struggling to find the appropriate words. "…how do you know that people are dead in that hall? How do you know I killed them?" She seemed in over her head at this point. This man, or creature, seemed to know more than he should. He was quiet for a moment, and then answered. "I can sense death. But I can also feel the hatred within you. And your particular hatred is mixed with satisfaction. The only reason you would be satisfied with death is if you caused it yourself. So, I must know. What brought you to kill the people inside?" He didn't seem angry or shocked, or even scared at the thought of being near a girl who had just killed dozens of men. In fact, he seemed pleased.

"They betrayed my family." She found that she had no problem opening up to this strange figure. "They murdered my brother and mother, and they would have raped and killed me if I had been there as well." The robed man regarded her with his yellow-red eyes, showing no sympathy towards her loss.

"Ah, betrayal. I am familiar with it. Tell me. Has you revenge run its course, or are their still scores you have yet to settle?" he asked.

Arya looked up at the man and was surprised to find herself smiling, "I have a list." She said. "And it's not even close to finished. Why?"

The robed man looked out across the land and then back at her, "I can help you exact your revenge. I can give you the tools to crush your enemies as if they were made of glass. In this primitive land, the powers I can teach you would make you like a god among them. Join me, and you will never fear another living thing again...they will fear you." With that, the man reached out towards a large pine tree and lifted his arm into the air. Arya watched in awe as the tree ripped away from the ground, roots and all, and floated several yards above the gaping hole the roots had left. The man turned his hand causing the floating tree to turn on its side horizontally, and then swung his arm around causing the tree to swing with it, wiping away the remaining trees in the grove. The man flicked his fingers, and the tree flew discarded off to the side as if it were a mere twig. Arya was just about to start explaining that she already had the tools she needed to defeat her enemies, but after that supernatural display of raw power she felt inadequate, like she had before she trained with Syrio Forel, or the Hound, or the faceless assassins. Having resolved long ago to never feel helpless like that again, she made a choice. "I will join you." For the first time since she could see his face the man smiled. Not a happy smile, but a menacing smile.

"Good." He said. "What do they call you child?"

Arya looked into his face with conviction. "I'm Arya Stark. And you?" His smile went away, and his face looked deep in thought. He scanned the area once more.

Finally, he looked back down at her, "I am Darth Maul. Follow me." With that, Darth Maul turned around and walked back to his ship. Arya followed.


	2. The World Falls Away

Darth Maul allowed himself one last grin as he walked into his ship knowing the girl was following him. _Finally. An apprentice with some promise._ He thought as he made his way through the ships corridors. The ship was not his prized Scimitar, but it had extreme cloaking abilities. He had used it to orbit the girl's planet and gather data about this planet's surface. The problem was, the data he had gathered puzzled him. A polar ice cap was expanding at an extremely fast rate into the continents below it. A climate change like this should have taken thousands of years, but this planet was seeing an ice age develop in months. Maul didn't know what was causing the rapid change in climate, and he had a feeling he didn't want to find out. What he did know was that he probably had saved the girl's life. An unnatural climate change like this would most likely spell doom for the inhabitants of the planet. But, none of that mattered anyways. He wasn't likely to come back here. Sure, if things went well with the girl he may take her back to exact whatever petty revenge she had planned. That is, if the planet wasn't a large ball of ice by the time they returned. It made no difference to him. Right now, he needed an apprentice who would help him with his own endeavors. He thought of the girl and remembered what had drawn him to this planet in the first place. The pulse.

He had felt it shudder through him down to his core. It had been like a tidal wave of force energy crashing into him, with small residual force waves washing over him. Even now he could feel the energy coming off the girl. Part of it frightened him. This girl could become one of the most powerful entities in the galaxy. But could he control her if, or when, she became stronger than himself? The question would have to be answered eventually. For now though, she had much to learn. When he had initially felt the pulse, he was hiding in the Outer Rim at the edge of Wild Space. He was shocked to find that the pulse had originated from an unknown planet in Wild Space not far from his location. He knew he must have been the closest force sensitive being to it. Jedi and Sith did not travel this far outside the know parts of the Galaxy. Although, when he had first felt the pulse, he thought that maybe a Jedi collective had found him out. But that could not be. There were records of his death in the Jedi Archives on Coruscant. His investigative informant had assured him of that right before Maul ended his miserable existance. No. Almost no one knew he was alive. So, there would be no reason for Jedi to come searching for him. All he did know about the matter at hand was that the force pulse emitted from the girl was strong enough that the Jedi would most certainly be investigating this area in due time. He had wasted enough time in reconnaissance just to ensure that the girl was not some sort of trap. But now that he knew she wasn't, they needed to leave quickly.

"What is this place?" The girl spoke with slight awe in her voice as she looked over the screens and buttons on the walls of his ship. "Is it some sort of hidden temple? I've never seen this here before."

Maul looked back at her with no expression in his eyes. "No child. This is my ship."

Arya looked up with a start. "Ship? There is no way a ship this big could have gone up the River Trident. And even if it did, how did you get it all the way over here onto dry land?"

Maul felt himself flood with impatience. There was so much to teach this girl for her to be ready to aid him in his plans, and she clearly knew very little of the galaxy and its workings. How to explain a starship to someone who has lived their whole life in a world where even simple flight is impossible? "This ship does not float on water. It is a starship. It will rise up through the atmosphere of this planet and travel trough the stars to another planet."

Arya's face showed signs of confusion and disbelief. "Atmosphere? Planet? I know what stars are. But I'm unfamiliar with the other terms."

Maul was about to reprimand the child for her lack of knowledge just as his former master would have done, but he did not want to emulate that monster. "A planet is what you would call the earth, or the entire land you live on. The atmosphere is the breathable air that surrounds your planet. Once we leave that, we will be in space and you will be able to see your whole world at once. There are other worlds. Other earths where other intelligent beings live. You are smaller and more insignificant than you may have ever imagined. Come, join me at the front of the ship and I'll show you what I mean."

Arya followed Maul as she processed what was told to her. Different worlds? Ships that flew in the air? What had she gotten herself into? Suddenly the fate of Westeros seemed insignificant compared to the grand scheme of things. Maul led her down a corridor to a smaller room. The room had a window and hundreds of little lights and strange instruments. Some of them reminded her of instruments that Maester Luwin would tinker with in his study chambers at Winterfell, but much more advanced and foreign.

"What is this room?" She asked running her hands across some of the lights. Maul grabbed her arm and lifted it away. It was the first time he had physically laid a hand on her and she quickly pulled her arm free and backed away. Maul seemed genuinely surprised by her reaction.

"Relax child!" he grumbled. "I'm not going to hurt you. Those buttons are not to be touched. In fact, do not touch anything in this room unless I tell you to as long as you are on this ship."

Arya didn't want to bring this man's wrath upon her. Not while she was on his ship, so she just nodded. "Come and watch" Maul gestured out the window to the trees and grass below. Arya watched while Maul sat in a chair near the middle of the room and started pressing the buttons and levers. As he did so, a very slight humming filled the air and Arya started to feel afraid again, but she forced her fear down again and continue watching. Suddenly, she noticed the grass and trees getting farther and farther away. Almost as if the structure she was in was getting taller and taller. She had seen impressive heights when she had visited some of the buildings in Kings Landing, but eventually she was higher even than those great heights. The ship turned a small bit, and as it did the Twins swung into view. Her mouth fell open. They were so impossibly far below them that they looked like tiny squares with a silver ribbon laying between. Her head spun, and she started to feel dizzy.

"What is happening!" she yelled. She tried to keep the fear from her voice, but it was impossible.

"You are flying child." Maul said. "And we will be going much higher than this. You are not accustomed to seeing hights like these so your body is reacting negatively. The feeling will go away once we are high enough."

Arya could see that it was true. Her dizziness faded as the Twins became as small as two specs of dust, and then vanished completely. As she regained her composure, her fear melted away. _What is wrong with you, stupid girl!_ She thought. _This is more than you bargained for!_ The ground continued to fall away from her. As they rose through the air she finally noticed something. The land was taking shape below her. She had studied briefly the maps of Westeros and knew it's general shape. Now she could take in the entire realm all at once with her own two eyes. She watched in wonder as she started to notice the land across the narrow sea. Essos. She'd spent plenty of time there as well. It was all so wonderful, until she looked North. Judging by her knowledge of Westeros from her studies with Measter Luwin, she had a rough estimate of where Winterfell should be, and winter didn't normally extend much farther south than her old home. Only now it did. It looked unnatural and eerie to her, and she somehow knew there was a wrongness to it all. But that didn't matter now. Whoever this Darth Maul was, she was with him now, wherever that would lead. Eventually, she would learn what she had to from him and come back to complete her list. She only hoped she wouldn't be gone too long. All the while she thought this and still the world grew and disappeared below her until finally, she could see the edges of the world. And what she saw took her breath away even more. The entire world was laid out for her on a disk. She could see Westeros and Essos, the latter shocking her with how large it was when compared to Westeros. But now she noticed she could see other lands too. Lands that were not on any map, nor were taught by any Measter.

"It's beautiful." she whispered.


	3. A Place to Rest

Maul studied the girl's reaction for a moment as she stared in awe of her planet. He remembered thinking the same thing the first time he had left his home world behind and saw Dathomir from space. But, those were emotions he had buried long ago. He found himself breaking the silence "There are planets that would make this one seem dull. The galaxy is immense and holds many secrets. Soon, you will know more." Maul turned to leave. "Now, come with me." he said as Arya continued to gawk out the window. "I will show you to your sleeping chambers. It will be a few days before we reach our destination."

"And where is that" Arya said. She didn't look at him but instead continued to look at her planet fading away in the blackness.

"My home world" Maul said. He turned to continue walking out of the control room when he heard Arya whisper, "It's looks so small." "Child." Maul said in a slightly impatient tone, "follow me." Arya shook herself out of her daze and followed him.

They went down several corridors until they stopped in front of an indented section of wall. "Password creation." Maul said to the section of wall.

"Please speak entry code." A pleasant female voice from seemingly nowhere said. Arya crouched down and looked all around her, searching for the source of the voice.

"Relax child." Maul mumbled. "Speak the password you want to enter your quarters. This door will only open to your voice command once it is set." Arya seemed confused but went along with it.

"Ok." she said, "What do I have to do?"

 _My patience is being tested._ Maul thought. But then again, what was he supposed to think. This girl had lived in an extremely primitive society. There will be many things she did not know that came naturally to him. "Just speak a word or phrase that you can remember and the ship will let you into your sleeping quarters" Maul gestured to the door. Once more he said, "Password creation."

"Please speak entry code." The voice from nowhere repeated. Arya stood in front of the door and spoke a phrase. "Valar Morghulis."

"Password set" the voice from nowhere said. And the section of wall opened to reveal a room on the other side. Arya stepped through the doorway as Maul looked after her and wondered what her password could mean. He pondered this for a moment, but then quickly regrouped and followed the girl inside.

The room itself was quite large with several doorways branching off. There was minimal furniture and Arya thought most of it looked odd and rather uncomfortable. Maul showed her the kitchen where food was kept in a box that stayed cold on the inside. He showed her where she could deposit her waste and wash herself.

"You are to wash yourself daily." Maul said. "I will not have you become filthy and odorous on my ship." Arya was a little taken aback. Bathe once a day! Why, there were lord's she knew who wouldn't even do that. But she didn't argue the fact. "Here are your bed chambers." He continued. "Rest well, for your training will be strict and grueling. I will leave you now and be back in eight hours. Sleep."

Arya watched as Maul left, the door to her quarters sliding down and locking behind him. She sat on one of the uncomfortable looking chairs and found it to be surprisingly comfortable. She leaned back and closed her eyes, taking in the events of the past twenty-four hours. She had thrown a great party disguised as Walder Frey and poisoned everyone except for the serving girls. Shortly after, she had met this strange man, or whatever he was, who called himself Darth Maul. Maul had then promised to give her powers she would never have believed until she saw him rip a tree from the ground with only his mind. And now she was on a flying ship that was taking her to another world. The universe had just gotten a whole lot bigger, and as she pondered these thoughts she began to think that the squabbles in Westeros were petty and meaningless. There were other worlds out there. Other places to visit among the stars. She could just leave it all behind. Her bastard brother Jon was the only one who actually liked her, and as far as she knew, he was stuck at Castle Black. Her sister Sansa didn't like her, her other brothers didn't care about her, and the rest of her family was dead. She could just leave Westeros to whatever fate befell it. It was an intriguing thought. Suddenly, Arya's jaw set and her eyes narrowed. No. She would not abandon her home world. Visions of her brother's decapitated corpse floated though her mind. Visions of his wolf's head sown in place of his own and paraded around the Twins to be further humiliated. And then there were reports she had heard of her mother being slaughtered in the great hall along with all the soldiers and people from Winterfell that she had known her whole life. People who had been her friends. Sure, the Freys had been the ones to swing the sword, but the puppet-strings that worked them extended to King's Landing. Cersei was number one on her list. She had been the cause of all of the horrible things that had happened ever since they arrived at King's Landing as a family. A family that now lay broken because of her. No. She would not let the evil on her own world go unpunished. She would take whatever new training she received from Darth Maul, and she would unleash a bloody justice the likes of which had never been seen in the Seven Kingdoms.

After sitting for awhile lost in thought, she decided it best to wash herself before bed. She went into the bathing area and was surprised to find the whole place to be whiter than the great Weirwood tree back at Winterfell. She had never seen a room so white and it hurt her eyes to look upon it. She stepped into the bathing contraption that Maul had called a shower, and through trial and error she figured out how to wash herself. The hot artificial rain felt refreshing and relaxing, but as she stood naked under the stream of water, she noticed trails of red and brown wash off her body. The dirt and blood were a sharp contrast against the white floor as it flowed through the drain at her feet. _Was I really that dirty?_ Arya thought as she watched her filth wash away. She hadn't felt dirty. But watching what came off her body, she wondered if she had ever really been clean. She found white lumps on a shelf that she immediately recognized as soap. _Finally, something I recognize._ She thought as she scrubbed her skin clean. She grabbed a towel and dried herself, and after some light searching she found pants and a shirt, both of which fit her surprisingly well. The clothing was light and comfortable, but also kept her warm. As she settled into her bed, it all hit her at once. The massacre she had just created, the plans she still had left to fulfill. And on top of everything was the fact that she wasn't even on her own planet anymore. She felt that she should be afraid, but she wasn't. She was just, tired. All the strange events during the last few years of her life had made her quick to adapt to anything and everything, and for that she was grateful. She was just about to fall asleep but quickly remembered her list of names. She forced herself to stay awake until she said every name, one by one savoring each syllable as she pictured their death and destruction at her hands. When she was finished, she lay her head back and let deep, uninterrupted sleep wash over her for the first time since she had left Winterfell all those years ago.

Maul sat in his chambers meditating. He thought of his plans and what he must do to execute them. He thought of the girl and how he would make her a powerful extension of his will. The devastation they would spread through the galaxy would be a thing of beauty. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted. The girl's voice floated through his mind. "Cersei, Ser Ilyn Payne, the Mountain….". Maul had no idea what to make of it, but he sensed it had something to do with her plots of revenge. _Her dedication is strong._ He thought. _She will not break as others have. She will not lose focus._ Waves of force energy still poured off of the girl. He could feel them through the walls of his ship. _So powerful. So full of hate. The galaxy will burn from her rage._ For the first time in decades, Maul fell asleep with a smile on his face as he dreamed of destruction.


	4. What is a Sith?

Arya woke to the sound of a knock on her door. She was just about to yell to her mother that she didn't want to get up yet, but something was wrong. The knocks on the door sounded too metallic, and the door to her room in Winterfell was made of wood. It all came back to her in a rush and her eyes snapped open. She looked around at her surroundings and found that she was indeed in her room on Darth Maul's flying ship. _So it wasn't a dream._ she thought. The knock on the door would most likely be Maul himself coming to wake her up. She slid out of bed and walked in bare feet to the entrance of her chambers. "Valar Morghulis." she said, jumping slightly at the hiss of the hydrolics as her door slid open. Maul was standing in the entry way in black robes holding a tray of food-type substances.

"May I enter?" He said.

"Yes." Arya turned to let him into her quarters. He walked over to the table and set the tray down.

"Eat." He said. Arya eyed the food on the table with scrutiny.

"Is it safe?" She asked.

Maul sighed impatiently. "I've studied the biology of your race and found that genetically we are virtually the same. My food will not harm you. And if it's poison you fear, do not worry. If I wanted to kill you I would kill you outright, and it would not be difficult." Arya scoffed at the last part, but decided to eat anyways. As she did, she started to realize just how hungry she was. She quickly ate all the food on the tray. There was a loaf of bread-like food and some soup-type substance; both of which weren't great but weren't bad either. During her hard life on the road her taste buds had grown accustomed to poor quality food out of desperation. This food would more than suffice. In fact, she felt more invigorated from what she had just eaten than she had in a long time.

"Now" Maul began "we had little time to discuss anything yesterday, and I know you must have questions. So, ask me any questions that you have. I will answer as I can." Arya had just finished the last parts of her meal and looked up eagerly. _Finally, some solid answers._ She thought.

"First, I need water." Arya said looking around her quarters.

"Over by the sink child." Arya followed Maul's gaze and walked over to the sink with an odd contraption mounted next to it. She just stared at it.

"Move the lever." Maul said impatiently. Arya did as she was told and water began to pour out. She stared for a second before she got her wits back and grabbed a cup next to the sink and filled it. She shut the lever off and the water ceased to pour out of the contraption. She took a sip. _Hmm, fresh drinkable water whenever I need it._ She thought. It was something so simple, but it amazed her. Entire towns had either died off or needed to relocate because of a spoiled water supply. Here water seemed like an afterthought. She finished what was in her cup, making sure not to waste any out of habit, and then sat across from Maul.

"Who are you?" She finally asked.

"I am Darth Maul. I have already told you this." His response seemed arrogant. As if it was a stupid question.

"Ok" Arya started again, "but exactly who are you? Where do you come from? Who do you serve? Should I address you as Darth, Maul, or fully as Darth Maul? Why-" Maul held up a hand to silence her.

"Let me answers these first." He sat in thought for a moment, and eventually Arya thought he was going to fall asleep, but finally he answered. "I come from a planet called Dathomir, which is where my ship is heading right now. My name is Maul, Darth is my Sith title. But you will call me neither of these things. You will address me as Master, and I serve no one." Arya was about to protest calling him Master, but the way he looked into her eyes told her not to question that.

"Yes Master." She said, surprising even herself. Her lack of respect towards any authoritative figure seemed to have worn off. Maybe she had learned a thing or two from all her previous teachers. Maul himself looked exceptionally pleased, and she found that she was happy with that.

"Are there any other question you wish to ask?" He said.

Arya thought for a minute and then asked "What is a Sith?"

Maul's face grew hard. "The Sith are an order of knights who look to dominate the galaxy. But really, it is a lust for power that drives them. The more powerful they are, the more they can control."

"And you are one of these knights?" Arya questioned. "I thought you served no one. Knights serve someone."

Anger was visible on Maul's face. "I was once one of these knights, but I was forsaken by my former master. I no longer align myself with the Sith." He sneered as he said 'former Master'. Arya could sense his hatred.

"Then why still use the Darth title?" She said.

Maul thoughtfully regarded this for a second. "My birth name means little in the galaxy. But my name, together with my old title, still carry weight and fear for those who would oppose me." Arya thought she could understand. Names like Tywin Lannister and Sandor Clegane brought fear and discomfort to people even when they were spoken in private. Some names carried weight. But she was no one. Or was she? She regarded this for a moment. She could prance around as no one, wearing the faces of those she had killed. Or, she could accept the truth that she was a Stark of Winterfell. In that moment she made a decision. She chose to be a Stark. And, when she was done with her own plans for revenge, no one would hear the name Stark and not tremble in fear.

"Master." she said.

Maul smiled wickedly again and looked her in the eyes. "Yes apprentice?"

"As my master, what will you be teaching me?" Arya said. She looked up at him eagerly. Maul's smile faded, and as he spoke Arya could tell there was great reverence in his voice.

"I will be teaching you the ways of the force, as well as how to fight with a lightsaber. You will be feared, and none will oppose you once your training is complete."

Arya liked the sound of that, but a dozen more question popped into her head.

"What is the force?" She said.

"That question" Maul began, "is more complicated, and best answered when we are on Dathomir."

Arya was about to protest, but Maul's glare silenced her. Maul thought about the force energy pouring off of his new apprentice. If he started to teach her how to harness the force, and she made a mistake, she could easily destroy his ship and kill them both. Best to wait until they were on a planet to start unlocking her abilities.

"You will see why we waited until a planet was underneath our feet to begin your force training." Maul said. "But for now, we will start with some light sparring to test your skill with a blade."

At this Arya felt a flutter in her heart. She loved sparring. She was extremely skilled at it, and as far as she knew, no one could match her now.

Maul pulled a bundle out from underneath his robes and set it on a chair next to Arya. "These clothes will fit you well and allow for maximum movement when we spar. I will leave you to change. When you are finished, join me outside of your chamber and we will go to the training room."

With that, Maul turned and walked out of her quarters leaving her alone. Arya sat in silence for a moment, and then rushed over to change into her new sparring clothes. Excitedly, she joined Maul in the passage outside of her quarters, and together they went to the training room.


	5. Lessons in Obedience

Maul led Arya to the central chamber of his ship which he had designated for training and sparring. He often trained there alone as he had gone a long time without an apprentice. _She seems eager to start._ He noted. _Good._ Eventually, they reached the entrance to the training facility. As the door slid open, Maul glanced back to get a look at his new apprentice's reaction, and he was not disappointed. Her jaw dropped as he knew it would. His ship's training facility had walls upon walls of different weapons and equipment. He had mechanisms and machines that could be used for sparring when one did not have a sparring partner, as was often the case for him. The room even had an obstacle-like course that could be used to mimic situations where footing was dangerous at best. He had it created to his exact specifications, and he was proud of it.

"What do you think?" He asked.

Arya stood still for a moment, taking it all in. "It's amazing!" she said as she gazed upon wall after wall of weapons.

Maul was slightly taken aback. This small girl was actually fascinated by all these things. _Well, we shall see how much she likes it when we begin her training._ He thought. She may have learned a thing or two back on her home planet, but what could she have learned that would even come close to the training of a Sith? The Sith, who force their apprentices to kill someone they love to prove their worth. Who put their apprentices through training so rigorous that most die before it is complete. There was only one way to find out how skilled she really was. Maul walked over to a rack on the far wall and removed two wooden sabers. "Let us begin." He said, as he threw one to Arya.

Arya stood there gazing at the different weapons on the wall and couldn't help but be amazed. Even the armory in Winterfell wasn't supplied as well as Maul's ship. She was still gawking when she heard Maul say something. She turned just in time to catch a wooden sword he had thrown to her. As soon as she caught it Maul was right in front of her, bringing his sword down to strike her left shoulder. All at once her training from the past few years kicked in and she gracefully pirouetted to the side and blocked his blow. He seemed generally pleased that she had managed to keep him from striking her.

"That was well defended. You are quick for one who has had no formal Sith training. But I can assure you, you are not fast as you think." Maul's raspy voice reverberated throughout the training room.

 _We'll see about that._ Arya thought as she squared off against him. Each of them stood still as stone for a fleeting moment. Finally Arya decided to go on the offensive. She reached Maul's position in a flash and feinted left towards his thigh, then quickly brought her sword's point up to his neck. As she did so, Maul's own sword mirrored hers exactly, and he blocked her initial attack. Arya blinked in shock. It was as if her sword and Maul's were connected by a string the way he had kept his blade in line with hers. The greatest swordsmen in all of the Seven Kingdoms wouldn't have been able to block that. But Maul had done it as if it were nothing. It was almost as if he knew what she was going to do before she did it.

While she processed this, Maul kicked her square in the chest and sent her tumbling backwards. Searing pain shot through her chest, but her training started coming back naturally, which allowed her to land on her feet and maintain a defensive position. Maul followed up his kick with an attack of his own. He slashed at her left side, but before her own sword could make contact with his to block it, he spun unnaturally fast and his sword slashed downward at her shins from the right, sweeping her feet completely out from under her. She grunted as she landed on her back side. She had hoped to make a good first impression during their sparring, but Maul was on a level she had never seen before when it came to fighting. She let out a small growl and pushed off the soft ground with her hands, flipping herself up to her feet. As she did so, she swung for Maul's neck again, hoping her attack would take him by surprise. Unfortunately, her sword swung uselessly over his head as he ducked with precision, rapped her hard on her right elbow, and back-flipped out of the reach of her sword all in one fluid motion.

"You are too predictable child." He jeered at her. "When I blocked your first attack, you stood there surprised, giving me a window to kick you. You underestimated me and overestimated your own skill. That small lapse in judgement could have proved lethal, because rest assured, I could have killed you with that kick." As he said this he lifted the bottoms of his robes slightly, revealing two silver looking legs.

Arya rubbed her bruised elbow and looked at the bottoms of his legs curiously. "Why do your legs look like that?" she asked.

A quick jolt of pain flashed across Maul's face, but he quickly corralled his emotions. "Because, many years ago I allowed myself to be distracted, and my distraction allowed my foe to get the better of me. I underestimated my enemy, and because of that I spent years and years in isolation, and almost died. My legs were lost in that fight, and I had them replaced with cybernetic implants."

Arya looked confused at the last part, but Maul continued, "Cybernetic implants are metal recreations of body parts that can be used as replacements if said body part is destroyed. I know this technology is beyond your comprehension, but just know that it exists. Also know that because of one small error on my part, I am forced to live with these metal contraptions instead of the legs I was born with."

When Maul looked up, he noticed Arya'a far-off expression. "Say what you are thinking child." He commanded.

"Well" she said, "I honestly didn't know any of this existed until yesterday. And now you're telling me that you have the ability to make a cripple whole again? I have a brother who is paralyzed from the waist down. I thought he'd never walk again, but if we can get him legs like yours, he can be himself again."

Maul's face hardened. "The mind, as well as one's ability with the force are more powerful than the body. That is not to say that you neglect the body, but a cripple with a strong mind may defeat a fully healthy, yet weak-minded foe."

Arya decided to push the issue." But is there any way we could go back and-"

"Enough!" Maul yelled.

Arya flinched. It was the first time he had raised his voice to her. Maul struggled to calm himself. "We will discuss this no further. I only brought up my legs as a lesson for you to not underestimate your enemy. But we are starting to divert from your training. Now, come. Try and strike me." Maul set himself in a defensive position as Arya stood there fuming.

"You don't plan on going back to my home world, do you!?" She yelled. "You-"

Arya's voice cut off her breath was suddenly choked from her. She tried to breath, but it was as if an invisible hand were strangling her. As she began to panic, her body lifted off the ground and was pinned to one of the training room walls. Wheezing for breath, she looked down and saw Maul holding his hand up as if he were choking her from afar.

"You will not raise your voice to me again. Do you understand?" he said through gritted teeth.

With that, he let his arm drop and Arya fell from the wall. She landed hard and instantly began gasping for a full breath of air. Maul walked up to her and looked down with no remorse.

"I am your master." he began softly but firmly, "and to disrespect me is to defy me. Have you ever heard of a master who allowed their apprentice to disrespect them?" The question was a rhetorical one, and Arya looked up at Maul with a newfound hatred. Maul stared straight ahead and continued, "As your master, I will determine our course of action. You will not get a say in what we do until you yourself become a master of the force. You-"

Maul, lost his train of thought when he noticed that the force waves that normally pulsed from the girl were pulsing even faster. _What is this?_ He thought. He looked back down and saw that she was crying. _Pitiful creature. She must be hardened._ But, as Maul was contemplating how to toughen the girl, Arya's tear streaked face changed from a look of remorse and sadness, to one of pure hatred. The pulsing began to grow faster. Maul started to worry as the walls of his training room began to ripple. The waves now crashing through his own chest felt like point blank shots from a blaster causing him to stagger. Arya herself seemed oblivious to what she was doing. She just lay on the ground seething, staring at Maul with all the hatred she had built up over the last few years. As the rattling of the walls started to grow stronger, Maul raised a hand and let forth a small wave of force energy. As soon as the energy hit Arya, she fell fast asleep. Maul let out a sigh of relief. _Powerful yes._ He thought. _But she needs to learn how to harness that power productively. I cannot let one of her tantrums destroy my ship. Perhaps we do not delve into her emotions until we reach Dathomir. For now, sparring will suffice._ With that, Maul picked up the sleeping girl and laid her on a bench in the shared quarters, for he was not able to open the door to her room.


	6. The Jedi and the Force

Arya woke to a low humming sound and an incredible pain in her neck. She looked around and saw she was in the common area of the ship on a metal bench. She propped herself up on her elbow and her entire body was racked with pain. She swallowed and found her throat extremely raw and sore. She thought about the last thing she remembered. She was training with Maul and he had made her angry. She had felt something then. Something powerful. Like an incredible force bursting from the center of her chest. Then nothing. Had she fainted? That would be an embarrassing look for her. She would look weak to Maul. She heard footsteps approaching from a nearby corridor and soon enough Maul himself walked into the chamber and sat at a table in the center of the room. His red-yellow eyes fixated on Arya.

"Sit" he commanded.

Arya was thinking about defying Maul again, but then she remembered how Maul had beat her easily in the training room, so she just nodded. Standing up proved difficult as both of her legs were bruised from falling off the wall. Every step hurt as she walked slowly to the chair opposite Maul.

"What happened?" Was all she could manage with a raspy voice.

Maul slid a glass of something towards her. It was a milky green color and did not look appetizing at all. "First, drink this. It will help with the soreness in your throat." He waited as Arya obediently did as he commanded. When she finished drinking the entire glass her throat did indeed start to feel better. Then Maul began to speak.

"You almost ripped apart my ship in the middle of hyperspace. Had I not incapacitated you, you would have killed us both."

"How?" Arya asked

"With the force." Maul struggled to keep his impatience at bay. "Your close proximity to another force sensitive being must have triggered something in you and allowed you to use the force without knowing it. You lost control of your temper and in doing so radiated waves of force energy that, if they had grown any stronger, would have destroyed my ship and sent us both to die in the vacuum of space." He looked at Arya with a look of dissapointment, but the look faded quickly. "An extremely strong force-sensitve being such as yourself can cause quite a bit of damage without even knowing it if they are not properly trained." He sat in deep thought for a moment and then continued. "My guess is you had a temper long before I found you, but you were young and not as connected to the force as you are now. With that in mind, know that I am not mad that you almost ripped apart my ship. Your hatred and anger are good things that I do not want to discourage as they will help you to unlock powerful abilities with the force. But, you also need to focus and control that anger, or your strength with the force will be useless and self-destructive."

"But what IS the force?" Arya said in a frustrated tone.

"I will tell you what it is if you can promise me you will not try to harness its power until we reach Dathomir. There will be ample time and resources for you to hone your skills with the force once we will reach my home planet . Can you promise me you will wait?"

Arya nodded quickly.

"Very well." Maul took a deep breath and began. "The force is a living energy that surrounds and makes up all living things. It is the reason for existence, and it allows certain entities who are sensitive to it, such as you and me, the ability to harness this energy and do certain things with it." Maul waited for her response.

"What sort of things?" she asked.

"Firstly, it allows you to move objects without touch. This you have seen already, with the trees in the grove on the night we met, as well as…yesterday." Maul looked at Arya as if he expected her to throw start throwing another tantrum at the mention of his force choking her. Nothing happened, and she seemed generally interested, so he continued. "It also allows one to have quicker reflexes, additional strength and speed, and for some extremely powerful entities it allows some level of precognition, or the ability to see very briefly into the future, allowing for an edge in battle. Some have claimed, as did my former master's master, Darth Plagueis, that with enough power, one could create life or even stay deaths hand."

Arya looked up hopefully. All the family she had lost, or was close to losing flashed through her mind. Could she become powerful enough to possibly bring them back?

Maul held up a hand. "Do not think of those you have lost who were close to you, for they will stay dead."

Arya felt herself flood with sadness and disappointment. What good was all this power if you couldn't do anything useful with it.

"I only say this because Darth Plagueis's work was not fully confirmed. And even so, it would take decades, and even centuries to learn what he discovered. He was an absolute master who practiced the darkest side of the force. Also, if you brought back a loved one using the dark side of the force, do you think they would be the same as before they died?" Arya thought about this for a moment and then shook her head to show that she understood.

"Now" Maul continued, "There are two main orders of force users that it will be of value for you to be aware of. The Sith, who I have told you about already." Maul paused for a moment, "And then there are the Jedi." He practically spat the last word.

Arya felt a wave of hatred wash off of Maul unlike anything she had felt from him before. She staggered slightly but caught herself before she fell out of her chair. "I can feel your hatred." she said, "Or, something like hatred. I mean to say, I don't know how I know that it is hatred. I just do. Who are these Jedi, and what makes you hate them so much?...Master." She seemed worried that she may have overstepped her bounds, so added the "Master" at the end to hopefully please Maul. It seemed to have worked. Maul showed no signs of anger towards her question. He only smiled at her calling him master again.

"The Jedi," He began, "are a group of force sensitive beings who look to bring balance to the force and to the galaxy. They look to protect the weak and make sure no one group, or individual wields too much power. And it is because of their fear of power that they eliminate the Sith with extreme prejudice. They look at passion and emotion, tools used by the Sith to unlock deeper, more powerful connections with the force, as being evil. They cripple themselves by rejecting anger and hatred, both of which can help grant you powers beyond what a Jedi is capable of. But, they are skilled and powerful in their own right. There is a level of hypocrisy within their ranks. They say they do not seek power, but they look to control things to fit their own agenda. Sometimes even using brute force when they deem it necessary. It was a particularly skilled Jedi who severed my legs from my body. But, it was my anger and hatred towards him that allowed me to survive long after I should have died. Something a Jedi would never do, and therefore would have perished where I survived."

Maul stopped there and let Arya process all he had told her. She sat in silence for a while, thinking of what all this new information meant for her. _Well_ she thought _there's our enemy. The Jedi. That's useful to know._

 _"_ So, you belong to neither of these orders?" Arya asked. "Surely there are others like you who know the force but do not serve either order. People like me."

Maul shook his head. "Maybe, but only those who remain in hiding. If the Jedi find a force adept, they bring them into their fold almost immediately, lest that person fall to the dark side of the force. There is one thing you must know. Eventually you will meet a Jedi in our quest, and they will try to sway you to their side. Just remember what I told you about their limitations and hypocrisy. They have their own agenda, just as the Sith do, as do I. The Jedi will be your most formidable opponents as you look to gain strength with the force, but I feel that when your training is complete, they will cower in fear from you." Arya got a devilish look in her eye. Some of the most powerful knights in the galaxy cowering from her own strength was an exhilarating thought. She could not wait to get to Dathomir and start her real training.

Maul saw the look in his apprentice's eye and knew he had her. He was aware that bringing up the Jedi would be the one possible obstacle in gaining this girl's trust. Would their order sound more appealing to her? Would she try and flee to join them instead? He needed to know, so he took the risk of explaining their ways to her. But that risk seemed to have paid off. She seemed too intrigued by the thought of power over her enemies. This was a good sign. She must have been greatly oppressed on her own planet if her craving for power was so strong. Good. He could use that during her training. He decided that they could spar some more as long as he didn't push her too hard...yet.

"So, if we cannot test our skills with the force for the time being, then let us practice with weapons." Arya shook out of her deep thoughts of power and looked up at Maul.

"Master? I don't know if I'm capable of sparring today. I can barely walk."

Maul sneered at this. "Oh? So, you only fight when the conditions are perfect, and your body is in peak condition?"

Arya realized her mistake at once. "No, I-"

Maul cut her off with a wave of his hand. "I can tell you are talented, and have suffered greatly. But, know that the training you will receive from me will be more grueling than anything you have ever encountered. My former master drove me to the point of near death. He sent powerful Jedi after me and forced me to kill them. He…tortured me." Maul set his jaw tight. Thoughts of force lightning electrocuting every square inch of his body haunted him still. "And because of this harsh training, I am now one of the deadliest entities in the galaxy."

Arya opened and closed her mouth. She had trouble processing all of what Maul was saying to her. Her training with the faceless men had been some of the most intense she had ever experienced. What Maul was suggesting seemed so cruel, she started to think she had made a huge mistake joining him. "So..." she began hesitantly, "will you torture me too?" she hated that she sounded scared when she asked the question.

Maul looked at her thoughtfully for a moment "No." he replied. "My former master is one of the cruelest people in the galaxy, and one of my greatest enemies. My old self would have no problem driving you so hard in your training that you died. But you are too great of an asset to me, and I am not like my former master." Arya breathed a sigh of relief. "But," he continued "Your training may be so severe that you will wish I had simply chosen to torture you. Now come, join me in the training room." With that he stood up from the table and left the chamber. Arya followed as best she could.


	7. A New and Powerful Weapon

When Arya entered the training room, Maul was standing in the center of it with a rack of weapons in front of him. There were a few wooden training swords, some dull metal swords, and a couple of sword hilts with no hilt guard or blade. These she stared at curiously. _What use do those have?_ She thought. She limped up to the rack of weapons, body tense in case Maul tried another surprise attack on her. No such attack came, so she relaxed a little.

"Today's lesson" Maul began, "will be on the main weapon type you will use, as well as the weapon types that you will most likely have to face. You grew up on a primitive world and I need you to be ready for what is to come."

Arya felt a flutter of excitement. She didn't know what kind of weapons existed beyond swords and bows, but she was excited to find out. Maul pause, and somehow, she knew he was about to show her something special.

"I noticed you looking at the lightsabers." Maul looked at her with interest. "Tell me, what do you think of them?"

Arya looked back at the blade-less sword hilts thinking to herself. _Lightsabers. Hmm, nothing seems particularly bright about them._

"They seem like they would be somewhat useless in combat." She said, shrugging.

"Then let this be a lesson for you." Maul said. "Just because something looks harmless, does not mean that it is. Surely, a small girl with a deadly skill set such as yourself can understand." The point hit home with Arya immediately.

Maul continued, "Always have your guard up. Never trust that a situation is safe for you unless you have personally made it so. But, back to the weapons at hand. Tell me, what kind of weapons do you have on your home planet?"

Arya thought about this for a moment. "Well, we have swords and bows and arrows. Mostly weapons made of iron with sharp blades and points for slashing and stabbing, and other weapons with blunt heavy ends for crushing bones."

Maul scoffed. "Those weapons can be effective in the right circumstances, but to the enemies we will meet on our quest they have been primitive for thousands of years. What I will show you now will be the weapon that you use the most, as well as the weapon that will pose the most danger to you. With that, Maul removed one of the shorter blade-less sword hilts from the rack and pressed the side of it. Arya's eyes nearly bulged out of her head and her mouth fell open. A blade as red as embers slid out of the handle with a loud hiss. When fully extended, a low and powerful hum emanated from the blade itself.

"This, is a lightsaber." Maul said in a reverent tone.

He swung the blade back and forth. As he did so, the sound of the humming changed pitch with each swing.

"It is made from a concentrated beam of powerful energy and can cut though nearly anything." With that, Maul used the force to pull a long, thick iron bar from the wall towards himself. When the bar was within reach, Maul gracefully cut the bar into several pieces, leaving each piece to hover in the air until he was finished. Then he released the pieces he was holding up with the force and they all clanged to the ground simultaneously. Maul pressed on the side of the lightsaber and the blade of energy recessed into the hilt with another hiss. Arya watched all of this take place with a sense of awe and wonder. She found that, in that moment she wanted nothing besides a lightsaber of her own. Needle was now no more than a primitive heirloom. Yes, it was still important to her because it reminded her of the kindness of her brother Jon, but how could it compare with what she had just seen?

"How can you defend against that?" she asked.

"A lightsaber will not cut through the blade of another lightsaber. Therefore, the main way to defend yourself from someone using a lightsaber is to become a master of lightsaber combat yourself. The Sith as well as the Jedi use lightsabers as their primary weapon. There are almost no beings who wield a lightsaber that are not in touch with the force. That is because, to become a master in lightsaber combat, the wielder must have a connection with the force to make the weapon truly effective. So, we will spar some more using lightsaber techniques. Most of what you have learned on your home planet will come in useful in terms of instincts and awareness, but there is much for you to learn when handling and fighting against a weapon like this. At the moment, if you came face to face with even a lightly trained Jedi padawan armed with a lightsaber, you would find yourself sorely outmatched."

Arya was going to scoff at this, but she was reminded of the beating Maul had given her when a pain flared up in her chest where he had kicked her the day before, so she remained silent.

"Now, I will let you train with one of the lightsabers I have here but know that your full potential will not be unlocked until you construct your own." With that, Maul used the force to pull one of the lightsaber hilts from the weapons rack and set it in Arya's hand.

"It's so light." She commented.

"That is one of the reasons the force is needed to wield it effectively. It helps the lightsaber become an extension of yourself and allows you to compensate for the lack of weight. Now, hold the hilt out from you and press the button on the side."

Arya did as Maul instructed, and a red blade similar to the one Maul had used slid out from the hilt. The energy blade gave off surprisingly little heat and added absolutely no weight to the hilt. Arya could feel the hilt humming in her hand ever so slightly and knew that what she held was more powerful than anything back on her home planet…except maybe a dragon's breath. She swung the blade awkwardly due to the lack of weight, making the humming change pitch. "I like this." She said though a devilish grin.

"Good. Eventually you will have your own and you will carry it with you at all times." As Maul said this, he used the force to hit the button on the lightsaber Arya was holding to retract the blade, and then force-pulled it into his own hand. Arya looked up at him with annoyance.

"I thought you said we would be using these to practice." She said.

"We will, eventually." Maul replied. "For now, we will still practice with the wooden sabers. Once you prove to me that you can keep yourself from being hit by me for a length of time, then we will start practicing with training sabers used to mimic lightsabers. I did some research and found that in the old Sith empires, the Sith academies used training sabers covered with toxic barbs from the Pelko bug. These toxins will temporarily paralyze any limb that it touches, mimicking the loss of that limb. The blade of a lightsaber is extremely hot and when it cuts through flesh, it automatically cauterizes the wound. So, unless you are struck in a vital organ, there is no chance for you to bleed out, making the possibility of you surviving the loss of a limb very likely…if you survive the rest of the fight."

"When will I get my own?" Arya asked.

"You will get your own when you can demonstrate to me that you can defend yourself completely from my attacks. If we trained with the real thing today, I would cut you to pieces. And remember, you will not simply be given a lightsaber. You will build your own."

"But I know nothing of how these lightsabers work." Arya retorted.

"I know this." Maul said; impatience slipping back into his voice. "You will deconstruct lightsabers which I have collected from Jedi that I have killed throughout the years. Once you fully understand the inner workings, I will supply you with everything you need to make your own. You can make the hilt in whatever form pleases you or enhances your fighting style." Maul looked at her with a critical eye. Arya noticed this and decided to be the obedient apprentice again.

"Yes, master." She said.

"Good. Now, let us continue where we left off." With that, Maul used the force to put the lightsabers back on the rack and push it against the far wall, leaving two wooden sabers floating where the rack had been. He force-pushed one of these into Arya's hand and brought the other into his own. Arya had a better idea of what she was up against this time, but even then, she still received the most brutal beating of her life in those next few hours.

Arya limped to her quarters, bruises covering her entire body and face. She had gotten two strikes on Maul in several hours of training. Two. Each strike earning an evil grin from her new Master. Meanwhile, Maul had shown little discretion and restraint in his training of her, battering every square inch of her small frame with decisive and well-timed strikes. He took time to point out every mistake she made when he'd hit her, telling her that each and every bruise and welt he gave her was her own fault, and that when her training was complete, she wouldn't have a single bruise to blame herself for. When they were finished, all Maul had told her was "Rest" and then retreated from the training chamber leaving her to limp back to her own quarters. Even though she was in some of the worse pain she had ever felt in her life, she knew that if she could survive this, she could survive almost anything.

"Valar Morghulis." she whispered to her door, wincing while she did so as even simple talking hurt the bruises on her face. Her door slid open and she limped inside. She was going to crawl into bed immediately but remembered Maul's rule about showering daily. So, she made her way to the bathing area. She let the warm water cascade over her, massaging every sore and bruised muscle. Afterwards, she crawled into bed and instantly fell into a heavy and dreamless sleep.


	8. Dathomir

Maul was excited. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually felt excited. They were about to land on Dathomir and he would be able to start the girl's force training. He was curious what abilities he would be able to unlock in her. He would have to be brutal, cruel even, to unlock her full potential. He just needed to be careful. She was brimming with power and he didn't want to risk her losing control and killing him.

He made his way to her chambers and knocked on the door. He heard shuffling from inside, and eventually the door opened revealing a bruised and groggy Arya. As ragged as she looked, she was dressed, and Maul could tell that she had washed herself. He was pleased. She looked up at him with disdain, but her face quickly changed to a blank expression. He turned away from her and started walking down the corridor towards the control room.

"Follow me." He said.

"Yes master." Arya said, wincing.

 _Good._ Maul thought. _She called me master. Maybe the beating she received yesterday humbled her a little bit._

When they entered the control room, Arya noticed that the window through which she watched her world fade away now contained a curious scene. It looked as if they were traveling through a tunnel made of blue light.

"What is that?" she asked.

"We are traveling through hyperspace." Maul replied. "It is an extremely fast form of travel and makes traversing the galaxy possible. We have been traveling through hyperspace for about three days now. Your world was in Wild Space, just outside the edges of the known galaxy while my planet resides in the Outer Rim of the galaxy almost completely on the other side. This is one of the longest stretches of hyperspace I have ever traveled."

"How far is that?" Arya asked.

"Farther than your mind can comprehend at the moment. But I brought you here because I wanted you to witness my planet when we come out of hyperspace. It should be in a few moments." Maul gestured to the window.

Arya watched through the window as Maul sat in the central chair and pressed a few controls. The blue tunnel faded in an instant, and Arya was immediately bathed in an ominous red glow. A planet that looked as if it had been dipped in blood appeared directly in front of their ship. Arya could feel herself flood with energy from the planet.

"Why is it red?" She asked.

"Dathomir orbits around a star much older than your own sun. Therefore, the star glows red, and has been red for millions of years." Maul basked in the glow of the planet. It had been years since he had set foot on it. But it was steeped in dark magic and would be a good place to really push the boundaries of the girl's abilities.

"I can feel power from the planet." Arya said. "I don't know how I know it's from the planet. I just…the moment we left hyperspace, I could feel a power and a connection in the direction of Dathomir." Arya looked up at Maul.

Maul started for a moment, and then regained his composure before Arya caught on. _How can she feel the planet's power? We haven't even gone through its atmosphere yet_. The girl was so strong, he would need to get used to her having an acute awareness of things, or her doing things that he found unnatural. So, he acted as if the this was normal.

"Good." He said. "That is because the planet is filled with force magic. A tribe of women used to reside here called the Nightsisters. They practiced the dark secrets of the force and controlled this planet for a time." Maul seemed sad as he said this.

"What happened to them?" Arya seemed generally interested.

"They were slaughtered by the Sith in their pursuit of power and galactic control." He tightened his hands on the controls of the ship as he said this. "And that, is part of my own personal revenge. Surely, you can understand." Arya simply nodded as she looked out of the window.

They remained in silence, each lost in thought as Maul landed his ship in the middle of a large valley thick with vegetation. When the ship touched down, Maul told Arya to go and make preparations, for they would be spending most of their time on the planets surface. She hurried back to her room and brought back with her a pack filled with spare clothes and needle. Even though she looked forward to her own lightsaber, it felt wrong to not have Needle with her.

She followed Maul down the landing of his ship and immediately got woozy.

"Your legs are getting used to solid ground again. The artificial gravity of my ship is still no match for the real thing. Plus, the gravity of Dathomir is not exactly equivalent to the gravity of your own planet. Do not worry. The feeling will fade." Maul began to walk toward a small hut Arya hadn't noticed. The hut was hard to pick out through the vegetation and trees that surrounded it. As they approached the hut, Arya was slightly confused because the hut from the outside looked like it could barely fit one person, let alone the two of them. As soon as she entered the hut however, she understood. There was a bed in the corner, but Maul had lifted up one side of it revealing a hidden passageway below.

"Dathomir used to be home to the Nightsisters, as well as the Nightbrothers, of which I was one." Maul began as they descended and walked through the dark tunnel. "While they have been destroyed, there still may be other lifeforms on the planet that could make things unpleasant for us. When I resided on this planet I needed a place to practice my skills in secret and without distraction, so I built my own training area underground in the heart of this jungle." Arya watched as the tunnel ended and an enormous chamber opened up around them. There were holes carved in the roof to allow natural light in, although to Arya the red light still felt unnatural. The floor was flat and spanned nearly three hundred feet in either direction. There were piles of rocks and boulders sprinkled around the chamber, which Arya found curious.

"Set down your things." Maul commanded. Arya obeyed immediately.

"One of the most important skills you can learn, is how to conceal your connection to the force. I'm sure by now you have been able to sense me, or at least sense my connection with the force?" he asked this as a question, but he knew what the answer would be. If she could feel the planet's power before they even landed on it, she would be able to sense his own power when they were in the same room.

Arya thought about it and realized that Maul was right. She didn't know how to describe it, but she could feel his presence, and when he was standing right next to her there was no doubt in her mind that Maul was a powerful force user.

"I can feel your power." She said "Although, I did not know that is what it was until now."

"Good." Maul said "So, you can see how problems would arise if you needed to infiltrate a place where a Jedi, or a Sith would be present. They would be able to sniff you out in mere seconds. I have not been able to shut out your own connection with the force since I picked you up on your home planet. But that is about to change. My former master was one of the greatest at concealing himself among enemies. So great that he commonly had dealings with the Jedi Council, a council of the most powerful Jedi known to the galaxy, and remained undetected. This is the skill most useful to us, as our plans require us to move in the shadows and not show ourselves until absolutely necessary."

As he said this he walked around Arya in a circle. She could feel his presence. She watched him with her eyes, and when he walked behind her she still knew exactly where he was. It was like being watched when you aren't looking. For some reason you can feel the stare and know where the person watching is. It was a similar feeling, only stronger as she could track Maul's every step without looking. But suddenly, she couldn't. His presence vanished from her mind. She turned around quickly, and he wasn't there. She turned back around and jumped. Maul was standing directly in front of her.

"How did you do that?" She asked "Your presence vanished in my mind. A presence that I have felt since you found me on my home world."

"I suppressed my connection to you with the force." Maul said "I lessened my connection with the living things around me to make myself undetectable. Right now, you are the only living thing near me, so I weakened my connection to you. You will need to learn how to do this if any of our plans are to work."

"What do I need to do?" Arya asked.

"Have you ever tried to be someone else?" Maul smiled as he said this remembering the girl's disguise on her home world. Arya started and looked up at him. "I have a feeling you may excel in this area." He said. "Your training in disguises is quite extensive. If you hadn't had so much force energy pouring off of you, I very well may have mistaken you for a large male the night I found you. What you need to learn to do is disguise the force within yourself. Feel your connection to me and weaken it. Through the force you can discern what is alive and what is not. Sever your connection to the living things. This will make you invisible to a Jedi or a Sith who would normally be able to detect you."

Maul must have stopped trying to hide his presence from Arya because all at once it washed over her again and she knew exactly where he was. She began to walk in a circle around Maul. She could feel the connection between them, and so she focused hard. She thought about being someone else. Someone who couldn't manipulate the force. She thought about being Arya Stark. But no, Arya Stark DID have a connection to the force. A strong connection.

"You are making your presence even more potent. Focus!" Maul yelled. His eyes were closed, but he continued to turn and face Arya as she circled him. He knew exactly where she was.

Arya quickly got ahold of herself and changed tactics. She remembered her decision to finally accept the fact that she was a Stark of Winterfell and not simply no one. But, maybe she could be both at different times. Maybe being no one right now would help her in this particular situation. So, she focused again. She focused on being a blank canvas on which to paint any person. This was the same process she used when she prepared to wear the face of another individual. She became no one. She had no ties or allegiances. She had no identifying factors. She had no connection to the force or anything living thing around her. She would blend in so well that no one would look twice. She would be nearly invisible, while still remaining visible. Arya let these thoughts wash over her as she walked silently around her master.

"Yes. Yes!" Maul's eyes were still closed but he was no longer turning to face Arya. He couldn't sense her anymore. His eyes opened and turned to find Arya standing behind him. Her own eyes shut in concentration. "Good child. You can reveal yourself to me again."

With that, Arya opened her eyes and stopped concentrating. Maul nearly staggered when her presence washed back over him. "You did well child." He said. "But, you are concentrating so hard to conceal yourself that you are unable to do anything else. You may need to move quickly to escape a situation or fight a skilled enemy while still keeping your presence hidden. I don't know what you did to hide yourself from me just now, but practice that until it becomes second-nature to you. Until you can hide yourself without even having to think about it."

"Yes master." Arya said, brimming with pride.

"Now, I will teach you how to move objects with the force." Maul said.

Arya watched Maul excitedly. This was something that she had been waiting to learn ever since Maul ripped a tree out of the ground on the night they met.

Maul began to walk to the center of the chamber with his arms held wide, slowing spinning and gesturing all around himself. "The force" he began loudly, "is all around us. It flows through us and through all living things. Through the force, we can feel our connections to everything around us. If we focus our attention on one of the connections in particular, we find that we can manipulate the object at the end of that connection." As he said this, he reached out for a small rock about twenty feet from him and the rock lifted gracefully in the air. Maul closed his fingers into a fist and then opened them quickly making the rock shoot across the chamber and shatter against the far wall.

"Now" he said continuing," our connections with any objects through the force is absolute and equal. It is only our minds that convince us that we cannot connect with larger objects the way we can connect with smaller objects. A man may be able to physically pick up a small rock, but the limitations of his physical self will not allow him to pick up a large boulder. This is not so with the force. If we can control our minds and truly focus with the force, we will find that we can move the large boulder, as easily as we can move the small rock." With that, he held out his hand and reached out with the force towards a large boulder and threw it across the chamber as easily as he did with the small rock.

"Try to move any of the rocks in your vicinity." Maul pointed to the pebbles surrounding Arya.

Arya felt along the ground with her mind and was unsurprised to find she could sense the pebbles at her feet. She singled one out and focused on the connection between her and the pebble, reaching out with her hand as she did so. Once she felt she had a grip on it with her mind, she lifted her hand. To her surprise, and Maul's, the pebble lifted with it. She was so surprised that she was successful on her first try, that she lost focus and dropped it.

"Verrry good." Maul's twisted and sinister smile blossomed on his face. "Not many are able to manipulate objects with the force so quickly. Come, try one of the boulders."

Arya looked past Maul to a row of boulders, each roughly the size of her. She took a step to walk over to them, but Maul held up a hand.

"The space between you and the object has little to do with the effectiveness of your manipulation of it." He said.

Arya stopped and stared for a moment. The pebble had seemed easy. It was tiny, and right in front of her. This task seemed far more challenging. But, she was determined to learn this skill, so she remained where she was and probed the surroundings with her mind again. There were the pebbles scattered around her. Then there was Maul. She continued moving her mind along the ground until it came across one of the massive boulders. She felt the connection. She felt the weight and the size of the boulder. How could she lift this thing? She held out her hand and really felt the connection. And then she noticed something. Maul was right. The connection between her and the boulder was the same as it was between her and the pebble. In fact, if she hadn't known it was a boulder before she searched for it, she could have mistaken it for another pebble. She looked at the boulder and pretended it was a pebble. If she could convince herself she was someone else at times, she could convince herself that this boulder was a pebble. She raised her hand, and this time she was not surprised as the boulder lifted off the ground. She swung her hand and let go of the connection. The boulder flew to the far wall. Maul stood there gaping.

"I…I didn't expect you to be able to do that." He admitted. "You're giving me very little to teach. But that is good. It means your power is great and there are things you may learn that extend beyond even my range of abilities. Let's try one more thing."

With that he picked up a boulder with the force and held it in the air between himself and Arya. Arya watched the boulder curiously when suddenly it cracked in half.

"What I just did requires an immense amount of skill to master. To not only manipulate an object's location, but to manipulate the object itself requires passion to fuel your connection. For me, the hatred of my former master is enough to strengthen my connection and split that boulder in two. Now, you try. And as you try, I will attempt to stir up as much hatred in you as possible." Maul paused a moment. "You will not like this, but if successful, you will have a valuable skill at your disposal. Begin."

Arya felt the surroundings once again and easily picked up the boulder.

"Now, split it in two." Maul commanded.

Arya concentrated as hard as possible to crack the boulder in half, but nothing happened. "You are not trying hard enough. Channel your hatred into the boulder itself. Cause it to break!" Maul yelled.

Arya thought of being beaten and left to die. She thought of all the people she had met that wanted to kill her. She channeled all that hatred into the boulder and still, it persisted.

"Let us try another method." Maul said.

While Arya was concentrating on the boulder, Maul probed her mind and found exactly what he was looking for. Arya's decapitated brother with a wolf head sown in place of his own. A glimmer of shock and sympathy ran through Maul, but he repressed it. He thought of a scenario with this memory that would be most effective to stir up hatred, and then projected that scenario for Arya in her mind.

Arya was confused. One second she was attempting to crack a boulder in two with her mind, and the next second she was in her old room at Winterfell. She could tell it wasn't real. That it was all in her head. But it felt real nonetheless. She was crying but couldn't remember why. He brother Robb walked into her room. Rob! It felt good to see him again. The warmth she felt at seeing someone she loved alive comforted her so much she began crying even harder.

"Hello little wolf." Robb said. "Why are you crying?" he wrapped Arya in the warmest embrace she could ever remember feeling.

"You're all dead. You, father, mother. Probably the others as well." She began to sob as her loneliness was now fully realized. She buried her head into her brother's cloak. He felt so real.

"We may be gone. But we're always with y—" Robbs voice cut out with a violent gurgle. Arya felt something warm and wet drip onto her head. She looked up and screamed. It was still Robb, but his corpse with the wolf head. Blood was seeping in between the stitches and onto her. She was struck with shock and horror. Suddenly Robb became Maul, and then the rest of the daydream fell apart around him. She was still on Dathomir trying to split a boulder in two. Maul was still watching her, and he was smiling. Arya's shock and horror began to change. A new-found hatred so powerful it almost hurt began to blossom within her.

"Use that hatred. Use it to destroy the boulder." Maul said from beside her.

So that is how it would be? She thought. Maul would toy with her emotions to get her to react the way he wanted. Fine then. She would show him just how broken and full of hate she really was. She began to growl in anger. Her growl turned into a scream as she felt for the connections of all the stones in the cavern. Pebbles, rocks, and boulders all began to lift off the ground at once and circle around Arya. Maul's eyes grew wide and he attempted to subdue her with the force as he had done on his ship in the training room. Only, nothing happened. Arya continued to scream as her entire body was racked with pain from the hatred she was feeling, so she channeled it into the stones. Every last ounce of anger poured out of her at once and with a sudden boom of power, every single stone turned to dust.

Arya passed out.


	9. Power and Control

Maul was confused as to where he was. The last thing he could remember was Arya shattering the stones in his training cave to dust, and then…nothing.

"Maul." An eerie voice whispered in Maul's mind.

He knew that voice, but he couldn't place it. He looked around and realized that he was in the very hut where he spent his first years on Dathomir with his real mother. But how could that be? This hut was on the other side of the planet from his training cave.

"Maul." The voice repeated. It was a raspy, evil sounding voice, and this time it wasn't in his mind. It came from directly behind him.

It finally clicked for Maul who that voice belonged to, and he trembled as he turned around to face the voice's owner. Mother Talzin.

"Mother Talzin?" Maul said with doubt in his voice. This was not possible. She was dead. General Grievous had seen to that personally.

"Are you so surprised to see me, boy?" Talzin said. "My connection to our planet's magic is strong and my spirit still remains."

"Is this real?" Maul asked, gesturing to the hut they were standing in.

"No, this is all in your mind." Talzin replied. "But my spirit is very much real and communicating with you now. Tell me, what brought you back to this place?"

"I wanted to train in my old training cave away from everyone and everything." Maul said.

"That is a lie." Mother Talzin scolded. "You think I could not sense the other force user you have brought with you to this planet?"

"I…I have a new apprentice." Maul finally admitted. "I figured it would be a safe place to train her. When your coven was wiped out, the Sith's interest in Dathomir dwindled, so I figured it would be an unlikely place for anyone to find us."

Talzin sighed. "Ah yes, your new apprentice. She presents somewhat of problem. But tell me, do you know of her strength?"

"Yes Mother." Maul said. "I have felt the power she has with the force. I've seen her do things that most force users would consider to be…unnatural."

"Yet still you train her?" Talzin asked. "It will be a matter of weeks until you are far beneath her in skill and strength. How do you plan to control her?"

"I have begun to tell her tales of the Jedi and the Sith and their constant plans and politics. Her connection with the force is strong, but her mind can be manipulated. She has had a traumatic upbringing and trusts no one. She prefers freedom and seeks power to crush her enemies. This I will give her. To truly discover her power, she will need to work with me and help me with my own agenda." Maul said.

"And that is?" Talzin inquired.

"I have informants still living from my days with Shadow Collective. These informants are masters at blending into their surroundings and obtaining information. They have revealed to me the locations of several Sith holocrons from previous Sith Lords. My apprentice and I will recover these holocrons, and with the information gained from them I will train the girl to be the ultimate assasin. Once I deem her ready, I will send her to destroy my enemies…OUR enemies. Darth Sidious is the most powerful dark side force user alive, but hopefully when the girl's training is complete, she will be able to kill him."

"And if you train her all of this, and she refuses?" Talzin raised an eyebrow at Maul.

"I have not gotten that far yet." Maul admitted. "But I will keep the promise of more power dangling in front of her. To obtain it, she will need to work with me."

"Fool!" Talzin bellowed. "Do you not see the folly of your actions. Your relationship with this girl is predicated on trust. Yet you send her down the path of the dark side and expect her to remain loyal to you? If the history of the Sith has taught us anything, it is that once the apprentice becomes powerful enough, they usually find little use for the master. What makes you think she will care about your endeavors, or better yet, follow your orders once she is stronger than you? You think you are training an assassin to kill your enemies, but really you are training the assassin who will take your own life."

"Five days ago, I didn't even know that this girl existed!" Maul yelled back. "Her disturbance in the force was so powerful that if I had not taken her, the Jedi or Sidious would have found her. I needed to move quickly."

"Very well." Talzin said. "But you're wrong about one thing. Sidious is not the most powerful dark force user alive right now. Your apprentice is…"

Maul looked up at Talzin with surprise. He knew she was insanely powerful, and could possibly become more powerful than Sidiou, but more powerful than him already?

"Yes." She continued. "I have felt Sidious's presence before, and your girl's is far more potent. Your plan is good save one flaw. The girl will eventually fail to be controlled, and you will have no way to stop her…but I might have a way."

Maul looked at Talzin inquisitively.

"Tell me." She said. "Have you ever heard of the Dagger of Mortis?"

"No." Maul said. "How will a simple dagger help us control one of the most powerful force users ever known?"

Because, Talzin's mouth turned into a sly smile. "If death has done one thing for me, it has put me into contact with some of the most powerful spirits in the Galaxy. One of those happens to be the Father."

"Whose father?" Maul asked.

"No. THE Father." Talzin corrected Maul. "He was once a living entity residing in the outer most reaches of galaxy. He was ever watchful over his children who he simply called the Son and the Daughter. There was a recent dispute between them. A dispute that coincidentally enough involved the same Obi Wan Kenobi who cut you in half." Maul growled as he heard the name Obi Wan Kenobi causing Mother Talzin to pause. "Your obsession with Kenobi will only result in your own downfall. But never mind that, it is beside the point."

"Which is?" Maul asked.

"The point is that, in this altercation between the Father, Son, and Daughter, the dagger of Mortis was used to kill the Daughter, and the Father used it to kill himself to make his evil Son vulnerable. Why this dagger is special is because the Father himself was made of nearly pure force energy, with his daughter being a pure personification of the light side of the force, and his son being a pure personification of the dark side. These three were literally the force incarnate, and the Father was able to control his children with this dagger. And when things got out of hand, it was able to kill them. So, our path is simple. Retrieve the dagger and gain control of your apprentice. If the girl cannot be controlled, then she must be killed." Talzin remained silent for a time to let Maul process all that she had told him.

"Where is this dagger located?" Maul asked.

"I do not know yet. I am still communing with the Father to find that out. Do what you have to do with the girl, go where you need to go. But return here within several months, and I may have more answers for you." With that, Mother Talzin faded away and Maul's dream left him.

Maul woke up with a start. Mother Talzin's face faded from his mind. He quickly grabbed for his lightsaber and when he felt it at his waist he instantly relaxed. He went to sit up, but found his entire body riddled with bruises. A sharp pain in his side caused him to yelp and lay back down. He gritted his teeth and tried one more time, finally being able to prop himself up on his elbow. He took stock of his surroundings. He was still in his training cave and there was a roaring bonfire next to him. He was laid out on a sleeping mat and there was a canteen of water next to his pillow. There was no sign of the girl and he couldn't feel her presence.

"How do you feel?" a voice from behind Maul asked causing him to nearly jump out of his skin. Maul turned over quickly and activated his lightsaber holding it up defensively. Arya's face looked ominous in the red light. She had been right behind him watching him…and he had not felt her presence.

"You learned to hide your presence without trying so hard, impressive." He said as his lightsaber blade retracted with a hiss. "As far as my physical well-being is concerned, there is a pain in my side that may need further attention." He groaned as he fully sat up.

"You have three broken ribs, and something called a concussion." Arya said. "I could sense the broken ribs after you were knocked out from whatever it was that I did. I thought you were dead, but I could still sense life in you, so I carried you back to your ship which told me you needed to seek attention from a medical droid. I searched your ship and found the droid. It told me what ailments you had and that it would treat you. I left you with the droid and once it was done with you, I carried you back here."

"Why?" Maul asked.

"Why what?" Arya rebutted.

"Why bring me back out here? Why not leave me in the ship?" Maul said with general curiosity in his voice.

"I don't like being cooped up in that ship. I like the fresh air and freedom that being on an actual planet can provide. But, I also did not want to be alone out here. I'm unfamiliar with your planet and don't know what kind of creatures there are out there." Arya sounded embarrassed as she said the last part, "Also, I needed to keep an eye on you in case something happened."

Maul felt a touch of affection at that, quickly realized it and then flooded with anger. "The droid could have kept watch over me." He snapped. "And bringing me out here in this vulnerable state could have easily proved fatal if something had actually happened. Now, how long was I unconscious?"

Arya looked down dismayed. "Four days." Maul calculated everything in his mind.

"And what have you been up to these four days?" he asked.

"Taking care of you and focusing on my training." She said in a somewhat hurt tone. "I also replaced the rocks and boulders I destroyed."

Maul looked behind her and saw that it was true. His face softened a little, but not much.

"What have you accomplished in your training in these four days?" he asked.

"Besides being able to mask my presence without thinking about it, I learned to control my manipulation and destruction of objects." Without turning around to look, she lifted up her hand with an open palm and a boulder behind her lifted off the ground. She quickly made a fist and the boulder cracked perfectly in two. She let both halves float for a second before gently setting them down on the ground.

Maul was pleased at his apprentice's apparent ability to train on her own, as well as her resourcefulness, but he was also somewhat disturbed. What Arya just did was a show of raw power so carefully precise and focused, that Master Jedi and Sith Lords alike would be impressed. The disturbing part was that she did it so casually and nonchalantly that one could tell it took very little effort for her. The more he thought about it, the more he thought about what Mother Talzin had said to him in his dream. If he could convince her to stay loyal to him, then he would be the bow, and she would be the arrow sent to destroy. If not, well…hopefully this Dagger of Mortis existed.

"You have done well." He said. "I apologize for being brash with you just before. It is a common trait for a Sith, or in my case an ex-Sith to not let any emotion show besides anger."

They both sat in silence for a time. Suddenly Arya spoke.

"Do you know who Mother Talzin is?"

Maul's stomach dropped. How could the child know of Mother Talzin? There were strange forces at work here.

"Yes, I know of her. She was the leader of the Nightsisters here on Dathomir. And she was also my mother. The real question is, how do you know of her?" Maul asked.

"Her spirit came to me in a dream, the night after I turned all your stones to dust." Arya said.

"Really?" Maul inquired. "That IS interesting."

"Why?"

"Because, Mother Talzin visited me in a dream as well." He said. "Tell me, what did she say to you?"

Arya hesitated, and then recounted her dream to Maul.

"She told me that she was a powerful witch, and that should could teach me all sorts of things that were beyond your power to show me yourself. She told me I only had to journey to the location of her old coven. When I refused, she got angry. She told me that I would have made a poor vessel for her spirit anyways. I used the force to push her out of my mind. I think I scared her."

Maul contemplated this. Well, that would explain why Talzin came to him in a dream and spoke of a need to control the girl. But control the girl for his own gain, or hers? He couldn't deny there was truth in Talzin's words, but was she looking to help him, or use him. Only time would tell. Until then, he would keep the possibility of the Dagger in the back of his mind.

"You were right not to venture to her old lair. She would have possessed your body in an attempt to reenter the corporeal plain again. My mother is dead, and I have accepted that. Also, you are too valuable to allow her to possess you. So, do not worry. This cave lies thousands of miles from where the Nightsisters used to reside. We should be fine if we remain in this portion of the planet."

"What did Mother Talzin tell you?" Arya asked.

"She sensed our presence on this planet and inquired about you. I told her that you were my apprentice and that you were extremely powerful. She told me something I had only guessed at until this point. She said that you were the most powerful force sensitive being to set foot on this planet. Which means that she seems to think you are already more powerful than my former master, Sidious." Maul looked at Arya to gauge her reaction.

Arya seemed surprised at this. "I knew I was powerful, but I didn't know I was that powerful. I still feel like there is much for me to learn."

"There is." Maul said. "You may have the raw power, but power without direction and control is wasted. Talzin also asked me what my plan was regarding you."

"What is your plan, anyways?" Arya asked. "You took me off my own planet and promised me power beyond my wildest dreams, but never told me what we would actually be doing."

"My plan…" Maul hesitated and then continued, "My plan is to turn you into the deadliest assassin this galaxy has ever known. You mentioned you had a list. Well I have one too. Sidious, Tyrannus, Grevious, Skywalker, and Kenobi among others. Some of these I can fight on my own, some I cannot. Something changed in me when I was defeated by Kenobi all those years ago. In my arrogance I felt I could defeat any foe that I came across. I learned to accept my limitations and use other means to achieve my goals. I did not have those other means until I found you. I will teach you as best I can how to harness and control the power within yourself, and then I will unleash you upon my enemies and together we can complete my list as well as yours."

Arya mulled all of this over in her mind. "So, where do we go from here?" she asked.

Maul smiled his sinister smile once again. "We start by finishing your lightsaber training and having you learn a few more abilities with the force. Once you are ready, I have a mission for us."

"What kind of mission?" Arya looked excited again.

"The Sith and the Jedi have been around for thousands of years, and during those years there have been individuals of note who, through exhaustive research, learned how to obtain power and abilities that allowed them to do seemingly impossible things. All are dead now, but their research lives on in the form of holocrons." Maul explained.

"What is a holocron?" Arya asked, intrigued.

"A holocron is a device that can only be activated using the force and is able to store immense amounts of knowledge. Imagine every book that could possibly exist on your planet." Maul said.

Ayra thought of the Citidel and it's supposed ancient and enormous libraries.

"Now," he continued, "imagine taking all the information in those books and storing it on a device that can fit in the palm of your hand. That is what these past Sith Lords have done with their secrets and knowledge. That means that out there, there are holocrons for that taking that are loaded with long lost secrets of powerful force abilities. And I have managed to track some of them down. We will recover these and learn from them what we can. Once you are powerful enough, we will track down those names on my list and eliminate them." Maul smiled. His plan could work, and if it didn't, they would still cause an immense amount of destruction for both the Sith and the Jedi.

"So where do we need to go?" Arya asked.

"Coruscant." Maul said. "It is a planet that houses one of the largest libraries in the galaxy as well as one of the most secure. The Library of the Republic and the Jedi Archives. We will infiltrate those libraries and obtain the holocrons I have found. But we cannot do this until I heal, and until you are more fully trained. Since I am physically disposed at the moment, perhaps we focus on the force part of your training. Tell me, is there anything I have done with the force that you want to learn?" he asked.

Arya hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "When I was trying to split that boulder in two, you forced a vision inside my head. A horrible vision of my dead brother." Arya paused for a moment, and then regrouped. "How did you do that?"

"Using the force, one is able to implant a vision into another's mind. It is tricky to master, but you yourself learn quickly and are extremely powerful, so I see no reason why you should have a problem mastering this." Maul said.

"How far away can the person you send these visions be?" Arya asked in a hopeful tone.

"If you are strong enough, and you my apprentice most definitely are, then you could send these visions almost anywhere in the galaxy. Why? Do you want to try and contact an ally on your home planet?"

This time it was Arya's face that broke out into a sinister smile. "I'm not really sure who my allies are at the moment. Besides, I had someone else in mind."

"Who?" Maul asked, surprised that he was actually curious.

"The number one person on my list." Arya said.

Maul smiled along with Arya. He knew what she wanted to do. For once, they were on the same page. "Very well. Let's begin."

END OF PART ONE


	10. Interlude - The Queen's Sleep

Interlude 1

Queen Cersei settled into the first peaceful sleep that she could remember in what felt like ages. Finally getting revenge on her enemies had that effect on her. Just the thought of Ellaria Sand having to watch her daughter die inches from her within her reach made Cercei smile. At least Ellaria got to see her daughter one last time instead of getting news that she had been kill hundreds of miles away like Cercei had when Ellaria had killed Myrcella. She could thank the brash and offensive Euron Greyjoy for her recent revenge. He was turning out to be a more effective asset than she had originally hoped. Things were starting to look up for her, and because of that, sleep finally came easily.

"Cercei." A girl's voice whispered in her mind.

Cercei rolled over in her bed, still asleep. Her mind subconsciously ignored the voice.

"Cercei." The voice was louder than a whisper this time.

Cercei's mind forced it out one more time, but her sleep wasn't as deep as it had been moments ago.

"Cercei!" the voice yelled in her mind. Her eyes snapped open.

"Who's there!?" she yelled. No one answered her. She looked over to the other side of the bed where Jamie would normally be, but he wasn't there. He was away leading their remaining armies in a siege to take over Highgarden.

Cercei got out of bed and shivered as her naked body was surrounded by unseasonably cold air. She put on a robe and walked to her door, opened it, and peered outside. To the right of her bedroom door was The Mountain, standing ever silent and vigil. While the sight of him was unsettling to others, to Cercei it was a comfort. The Mountian was someone whose sole allegiance was to her and he would protect her at any and all costs. She breathed a sigh of relief and closed the door. She left her robe on and crawled back into her bed. _Must have been a dream._ she thought as she settled into a less sound sleep.

"Cercei!" the girls voice screamed into her mind again.

Cercei woke up instantly and grabbed the sides of her head in pain. The voice was so loud, and definitely real.

"Who's there!? Who are you!?" she screamed again, too afraid to leave her bed this time.

"You know who I am, you scheming little bitch." The voice replied. It was a woman's voice, and it was dripping with hatred.

"This in my head, and clearly a dream." Cercei nodded to herself and seemed satisfied with her own conclusion.

"Ah, listen to you, smug as ever. Still parading around like you deserve to be here. Like you deserve every good thing you have ever obtained, despite the means you used to obtain it." The voice said.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Cercei said in an almost annoyed tone. This was most certainly a dream. She could deal with dreams.

Suddenly, the shudders from her room burst open and a young woman walked through the window seemingly on thin air. Cercei huddled farther into her bed and watched as the woman descended as if walking down invisible steps until she was standing on the floor at the foot of her bed. The young woman had short hair and was cloaked in all black. Her face was vaguely familiar to Cercei, but she couldn't quit place her. What disturbed Cercei the most was the fact that this dream was feeling more and more real by the second.

"Who are you! What do you want?" Cercei repeated.

"I'm not surprised you don't recognize me." The young woman said. "It's been years since you saw me, and I was quite young when your son ordered Ilyne Payne to bring him my father's head."

The blood in Cercei's veins went ice cold. "A-Arya." She stuttered.

"There you go." Arya smiled wickedly.

"You're not really here. You're dead." Cercei said mostly to herself. Though she doubted that. The news from the Twins about the Frey massacre had been littered with whispers that a Stark had been the cause. She had tabs on most of the Stark children, except Arya.

"Oh, I am most certainly still alive." Arya said. "And as far as what I want from you…well that's simple. I want your life, and the lives of those you care about."

As terrifying as this all was, Cercei was still convinced this was all a dream. She had enough real problems to deal with, she didn't have time to let herself worry about some apparition in her sleep. Besides, she was a queen. In her rise to power she had dealt with plenty of threats to her life and the lives of those around her. The corner of her mouth turned up into a small smile.

"Good luck. I've had armies of men and women that have wanted to put me in the ground, and still I remain." She said.

The apparition of Arya walked over to a bare section of wall and pulled out a small sword which she used to scratch something into the stone. "Valar Morghulis." She said to herself as she walked back to the foot of Cercei's bed still staring at what she had written on the wall. Slowly she turned her gaze back to Cercei. Suddenly, Arya reached her hand forward and Cercei felt her neck contract. She tried to take a breath, but found herself unable to. Arya lifted her hand up and Cercei felt herself raise out of the bed by her neck. Her robe slipped off and Ayra smiled as she stared at Cercei's naked body flailing as she clawed at her own throat. She brought Cercei forward as she dangled in mid air until her face was mere inches from her own.

"I want you to know something. I'm coming for you." Arya growled in Cercei's face. "You, and everything you know and love will be burnt to ashes. You may think me a simple child, but I have obtained powers you would not believe in your wildest dreams. So, enjoy the time you have left, because I'm saving you for last. I will wipe the Lannister name from memory and use your blood to rewrite the history books."

Cercei watched in horror as Arya revealed what looked like a sword made out of glowing red light. In the blink of an eye, Arya swung the blade and severed Cercei's throat.

Cercei woke up in a panic drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. She looked around her room and saw that the first rays of sunlight were peeking through the closed shutters on her window. She looked at the section of wall where dream Arya had scratched some cryptic phrase, and to her relief she saw that there were no words, but a portrait hanging there. She laid back in bed for a second, lettering her mind recover from the horrible nightmare. Suddenly, a thought formed in her mind and she needed to put it to rest. She crawled out of bed in her robe and walked over to portrait. She stared at it for a moment, not wanting to move. Finally, with trembling hands she pulled the portrait off the wall. Scratched in large letters were the words "Valar Morghulis".

Cercei fell to the ground and began to weep.


	11. Interlude - The Hand of the Queen

Interlude 2

Cercei wiped her face and stood up. She had been crying for a good ten minutes. The weight of a new and seemingly real threat ready to kill her at an undisclosed time was too much for her to bear. Eventually she walked over to her dresser and used a cloth to wipe her eyes. She was angry at herself. She wasn't some little green girl from the rural countryside who didn't know how to keep her emotions in check. She was a queen, and she needed to act like one even when others were not looking.

She had her handmaidens draw her a bath and took her time getting ready for the day. She dressed herself and was heading towards the throne room with the Queensguard in tow when visions of her dream came back to her. They were so real she lost her breath and almost stumbled. One of her watchful Queensgaurd ran up to steady her, which annoyed her. She hated looking weak in front of other people. She waved him away with a stare that would melt iron. He backed away and she continued towards the throne room when suddenly she had an idea. She turned around quickly and headed towards the chambers of the Hand of the Queen, Qybern.

She still didn't know what to think of the old man, but one thing she did know was the effectiveness of his methods. Also, he was probably the most loyal of all those on her court. But the main reason she was heading in his direction was because he knew about dark unnatural things. Maybe he could shed some light on her situation. She walked up the tower he resided in and quietly knocked on the door to Qybern's room. A few moments later, Qybern himself stuck his head out of the door to see who it was.

"Oh! I was not expecting a visit from Your Grace this morning." He said. "Forgive me. I need a moment to change."

"Do not worry. Take your time." Cercei tried to keep the worry out of her voice but was failed to do so.

"Is there something wrong Your Grace?" Qybern asked.

Cercei looked around as though she was being watched. "Maybe. I don't know. Let us talk about it in your chambers, shall we?"

"Of course." Qybern said. He shut the door and was back in a matter of minutes with new robes. Together they descended to Qybern's "workshop" as he liked to call it. When they reached the door his workshop, Cercei turned to her Queensguard.

"Wait outside." She ordered. Several looked like they were going to protest, but one look at the Mountain, who obeyed without question, told them that that would be ill advised. As Cercei and Qybern entered the room, Qybern gestured to a carafe and two cups.

"I know it's early, but would you like some wine Your Grace?" Qybern asked.

Cercei's already frayed nerves were being pushed to their limits, so she accepted. After the wine was poured they both sat across from one another at a small wooden table and drank in silence. Qybern was the first to speak.

What is troubling you Your Grace? He asked as he poured her more wine. A Dornish Red that the queen had been ever so generous to supply him with.

"I had a dream last night. A nightmare." Cercei said.

"Well, you have been under an enormous amount of stress lately, what with the war and your son's passing. It is normal to have nightmares in troubled times Your Grace." Qybern said. He neglected to fill his own glass again. He was never one to let alcohol cloud his vision, and he had a strange feeling that what he was about to hear was important.

"It wasn't just a simple nightmare though. I believe that it was partially real." Cercei looked down, almost embarrassed.

"What happened in this nightmare?" Qybern asked.

"One of the Stark children, Arya, visited me in my chambers. She floated through the window on what seemed like thin air." Cercei recounted. She had no trouble remembering the dream, it was just that, now that she was saying it all in the daytime, it felt quite foolish. Although, that still didn't explain the writing on the wall.

"Is that all your grace? Qybern asked.

"No. She talked to me. She told me she was still alive and that she was coming to kill me and everyone close to me. And then she used a sword to etch the phrase "Valar Morghulis" on the wall of my chambers. Do you know what that means?" Cercei looked up at Qybern, who didn't seem the least bit worried.

"It is a common expression uttered in Essos. It means "All men must die" in High Valyrian. You have probably heard it in passing, or in your studies as a child Your Grace." Qybern assured her.

"But the phrase wasn't the odd part. The odd part was that the words were actually etched into the wall when I woke up." Cercei looked at Qybern trying to gauge his reaction. He seemed a little more troubled at this.

"And you're sure they were not there before Your Grace?" he asked.

"No. Well, I don't know. There was a portrait covering up the words. So, maybe they had always been there and I remember them from before they were covered up?" Cercei said.

"It would have to be Your Grace." Quybern said. "The alternative explanation that your dream was actually real would be quite troubling indeed. Was that the whole dream?"

"No, there was one last bit, and it was the most disturbing part." Cercei filled her cup up one more time and then continued. "She picked me up without having to touch me. She lifted me out of bed and strangled me in thin air."

Qybern was at full attention now Cercei noticed as she continued.

"After I struggled in the air awhile, she pulled out a curious blade and slit my throat." Cercei shuddered as she finished recounting her dream.

"What was curious about the blade Your Grace?" Qybern asked.

"It looked like it was made of fire. It was red and bright, and made a low humming sound."

Qybern nearly fell out of his chair.

"What is it?" Cercei asked, both worried and hopeful.

"Your grace, I may have some answers, but I need to know that you can handle them." Qybern said. He was acting strange to Cercei. Well, strange-er.

"Know that, if you have information that could help me, and fail to divulge that information, it could be seen as treason." The wine was helping calm her and as she grew calmer, her usual confident self seemed to emerge.

Qybern seemed unfazed at the thinly veiled threat much to the annoyance of Cercei. It was an empty threat anyways. Cercei knew that her list of allies was growing thin, and it would be stupid as well as wasteful to remove Qybern, one of her few unfaltering allies. Especially when she had just put him in his position of power.

"Your Grace, I only aim to serve and protect you." Qybern said. "But the knowledge I am about to share with you will lead down a dark path. A path that, once traversed, cannot be untread."

Cercei raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her newly appointed Hand and scoffed.

"What would you have me do?" she said. "Our list of allies grows smaller by the minute. My last blood-borne son has killed himself. And, if there is any truth to the nightmare I just had, then the Stark child is on her way here, wielding a set of unnatural powers with the sole purpose of killing me. I don't see what other options are available to me. Also, I have tread dark paths before and come out unscathed on the other side. So, I command you. Tell me your secrets." The look in Cercei's eyes told Qybern that to disobey would mean his death.

"As you wish, Your Grace. Follow me, if you will." With that Qybern stood up and walked to the back of his workshop towards a space of bare wall with a single sconce. Cercei stood next to him confused. Qybern pressed his hand into one of the stone blocks and to Cercei's surprise, an entire section of wall opened inward.

"What is this?" She inquired.

"When you first brought me into your service Your Grace, I did some rather extensive research and was able to locate some of the plans used to build the Red Keep. Apparently, Meagor the Cruel failed to kill every single architect who had a hand in building this place. Anyways, there are many secret passages and rooms that have not been used in hundreds of years because they were simply lost or forgotten. This passage is one of those. But I must warn you, what you are about to see will most likely change your opinion of me, whatever that may be. Just know that the answers you seek are related to what is inside here."

For the first time since she had known him, Qybern made her uneasy. But she didn't doubt his loyalty, so she nodded for him to proceed. She was happy that she had left her Queensguard outside of the chamber so that this secret passage could remain just that…a secret.

Qybern grabbed the torch from the sconce on the wall and led Cercei down a narrow passage. He turned a corner and eventually the passage opened up into a dark room. Cercei could hear strange sounds, almost like whispers, in the dark. Her level of unease was bordering on panic now.

"Brace yourself your grace." Qybern said as he lit a sconce on the wall with his torch. That sconce in turn lit a trough that circled the room and lit it up as clear as day.

Cercei almost vomited. She turned away quickly and put her hand over her mouth, gagging slightly. She slowly turned back around and took in the grisly scene. Delimbed corpses hung from chains connected to the ceiling. Heads sat on workbenches with their eyes still looking around and their lips still moving. These were the sources of the whispers, apparently. There were also limbs pinned to the walls with their grayish hands opening and closing. The smell was almost enough to knock Cercei to her knees.

"What in Seven Hells is this!" she roared at Qybern. He flinched just ever so slightly at her wrath and was quick to explain.

"This is my real workshop Your Grace. I told you that your opinion of me would change when you saw my real work." He stood tense, as if he expected Cercei to storm back up the passage and tell her Queensguard to seize him. After all, what he was doing down here was in violation of several Citadel laws and carried a death penalty. But Cercei didn't move.

"Explain what is happening here. Your life may depend on it." Cercei found she couldn't take her eyes away from all of the horror the room contained.

"Of course, Your Grace." Qybern bowed slightly and then began. "I presume you were told that I was removed from the Citadel for practices deemed to dark and sinister?"

"I was made aware." Cercei said through clenched teeth.

"Then I must explain where my practices started from. When I was younger, my pursuit of knowledge lead me to many places before I entered the Citadel to become a Measter. One of those places was Asshai." He paused and looked at Cercei to see her reaction. Just as he expected, her eyes got a little wider at the mention of the ancient city.

"Ah, so you have heard of Asshai and the Shadow Lands beyond. Good. Well, while my team of explorers and I were in Asshai, I befriended a Shadowbinder who promised to be our guide into the Shadow Lands. While traveling these lands, we can upon the gates of a ruined ancient city by the name of Stygai. The Shadowbinder would go no further as her and her kind feared what lie beyond the gates. My companions and I however, had a thirst for knowledge that trumped any fear of entering the city. So, we ventured inside. What we found there I cannot describe very well with words. For starters, it was built by a race of beings much more advanced than our own. There were wonders that your eyes would fail to comprehend. But while we were exploring the city, a dread fell upon us, and we started to get the sense that the city was a place of great evil. The happiness in our hearts from this great discovery was matched by an all-consuming terror. Because of this, me and my companions did not spend long in the city. But, while we were there, we came across a building that must have been this strange race's version of our own Citadel, for it held vaults filled with tomes of knowledge and artifacts of great wonder. My companions and I gathered as much as we could carry and fled the city before night fell. Eventually we split up what we had recovered from the city and parted ways. When I was able to finally settle down, I began to study the texts from the ancient tomes in my possession, and what they contained fascinated and astounded me." Qybern paused for a moment to let Cercei process what he had just told her.

"Continue." She said.

Qybern nodded. "As I was saying. These texts were full of knowledge from a race much more advanced than our own. I found details of medical experiments far past the capabilities of even the most adept Measter at the Citadel. It was from these medical texts that my work as a healer began. Though the methods described in texts were dark and disturbing, they were also effective. You can see some of my work here in front of you." Qybern gestured to the moving limbs and heads. "These medical texts were also responsible for the revival of The Mountain. Something our common medicine would never have been able to do. And, while the medicinal portions of text were the ones that fascinated me the most, there were other things in the texts that proved just as facinating. There were descriptions of the ancient beings possessing abilities that should not be possible. I also found histories that dated back farther than our own. Much farther. As well as taking place on worlds that were not our own." He looked at Cercei. He could tell she was curious, but still skeptical.

"What has this got to do with my situation?" she said.

"The abilities that you described Arya as having in your dream match up with the abilities I found in those ancient texts. Being able to pick up objects with one's mind. Projecting images and visions to another person. These were all described in detail. Also, these tomes of ancient text were not the only things I obtained on my journey into Stygai. The weapon the girl carried. You said it was a blade made of pure red light, yes?" Qybern could tell that he had her full interest now.

"Yes." Cercei said.

Without a word, Qybern walked to the back of the room where a small door was inlaid into the wall. Qybern pulled out a large ring of keys and selected one which fit the door's lock. He opened the door and inside were a series of shelves, all littered with curious objects Cercei had never seen before. Qybern pulled a six-inch metal cylinder off one of the shelves and then walked back to her.

"Stand back, if it would please Your Grace." Qybern said.

Cercei did as she was asked.

"Did Arya's blade look anything like this?" Qybern said. He pressed a button on the side of the cylinder and with a loud hiss, a large red blade of light slid out. The blade hummed with power.

"Indeed, it did." Cercei said through her first smile in what seemed like ages.


	12. Interlude - The Sith and the Lannister

Interlude 3

Several weeks had passed after Qybern had shown Cercei his real workshop and told her about the origins of his odd practices and experiments. Ever since then, learning about this ancient culture from the ruined city of Stygai became Cercei's main focus. She would never, in a million years, have thought of herself as the scholarly type. But apparently when your life was on the line, you did things you could never picture yourself doing. She knew now that the nightmares she was having were most certainly real, and she wanted to be as informed and prepared as she could be to face Arya when she arrived. Since starting her research, she had learned so many shocking and wonderous things. She had learned about planets, the galaxy, and ancient civilizations. But none of these things helped her with her actual problem. The problem as Cercei saw it was not that these curious and unnatural abilities that Arya displayed in her dreams existed - it was that Arya seemed to possess them, and she did not. After studying with Qybern day in and day out, she was finally starting to realize just how dangerous Arya actually was, and how hopeless her situation seemed to be. She could send countless men to protect her, and she would get countless corpses in return. So, she poured over the ancient texts with Qybern to find any way to lessen Arya's powers, or somehow obtain those powers for herself or a trusted knight.

"Seven Hells!" Cercei yelled as she read over Qybern's translations of the texts. They were mostly written in High Valyrian, a language Qybern now suspected may have originated with the ancient beings who had written the texts. "I can't find anything that helps! There are descriptions of experiments and the powers gained from them, but all of the experiments involve something called the force, which I cannot control." She slammed her hand onto the page she was reading.

"We are not even close to finishing all of the texts Your Grace. Perhaps we will find a solution still." Qybern's calm demeanor and gentle words normally calmed Cercei, but she was starting to feel that time was running out. Visions of Arya visiting her were occurring on a nightly basis now, and each time Arya would kill her in a new and different fashion. It helped that Cercei knew these were dreams, but there was always the possibility that the next time would not be a dream, but the real thing.

"What of the artifacts that you have with you from Stygai? We have barely studied those. Maybe one of them holds the answers to my problem." Cercei's exhaustion was catching up with her. There was so much to manage BESIDES the Arya problem, she couldn't think straight anymore. Something needed to give.

"I have told you Your Grace, I have studied the artifacts extensively and none of them seem to be of any use to non-force users such as ourselves. But if it would put your mind at ease, I can go over them with you." Qybern walked through his workshop which had been cleared of his gritty experiments under Cercei's orders. She was clear with the soldiers that cleaned out the workshop that the death penalty awaited anyone who breathed a word of what they saw.

Qybern opened the storage closet and pulled out one of the artifacts he had. It was a sword, and it was apparent to both of them that it was quite ancient and significant.

"This," Qybern said, "according to the record log I managed to find in one of the texts, is the sword of Xendor. There is a little bit of the history of this Xendor in the texts, but not much. From what I gather, this Force that you talk about is split into two factions, light and dark. And the small amount of information that I have regarding this Xendor seems to suggest he was one of the first users of the dark side of the force, and quite a powerful one at that. According to the texts, the city of Stygai was some sort of safe haven for users of the dark side of the force. These force users would gather in the city and practice the dark side of the force in secret so as to not alert the users of the light side of the force."

"So this Xendor sought refuge on our planet in Stygai?" Cercei inquired.

"Not quite. From what I gather, these dark force users spread throughout the galaxy eons ago and during that time they managed to gather artifacts from all different dark force users that had existed before them. So, while the sword of Xendor was collected and brought to the city, Xendor himself never visited Stygai, or our planet. And the sword seems to be just that, a common sword. It may have cultural significance elsewhere, but not to the people on our own planet. So, we must move on to the next artifact."

"Which is?"

Qybern went back to the storage room and set the sword back on its shelve. He then pulled a strange device off of the shelf below it. This device looked like a small idol with a red crystal band that circled it. "This, if I have interpreted the texts correctly, is a something called a force disperser."

"What does it do?" Cercei asked.

"Apparently, it was used to hide a beings dark force powers. The texts indicate that massive versions of these were placed around Stygai to further hide it from light side force users. Since neither of us possess force powers, once again, it is worthless to us."

Cercei sighed with impatience. "What else is there?"

"There are two more artifacts Your Grace, and they seem to be related to each other somehow." Qybern put the force disperser back and returned with a small ornate pyramid-shaped object, and a mask. The mask was white and shaped like a skull. There were red streaks, almost like blood, that covered the mask around the eye holes. Cercei didn't really know what to make of the pyramid-shaped object, but the mask unnerved her for some reason.

"This is the mask of Darth Nihilus." Qybern said. "And this small pyramid is his holocron."

"Who was the Darth Nihilus, and what is a holocron?"

"The texts don't elaborate much on Darth Nihilus. It is assumed from reading them that beings in touch with the dark side of the force would know who he was. So, I cannot really answer the first question Your Grace. But as for the holocron, there does happen to be information regarding them in the texts. A holocron is a device that stores massive amounts of information. How it does this, I haven't the slightest clue. But, to access the holocron's information, you need to use the force. So, once again, these artifacts are useless to us." Qybern sighed, exasperated. "If there was really any information that might help us, it would most likely be in the holocron."

"Dammit!" Cercei yelled. "There has to be something that we can-" She stopped suddenly and looked at Qybern with a curious look in her eye.

"Is something wrong, Your Grace?"

"No. Something may actually be going right for once. I've just had an idea." Cercei's mouth curled into a small smile. "So, you are telling me that this holocron device may hold secrets that could aid me in stopping the Stark child from killing me?"

"Possibly, Your Grace."

"And you said that only someone with the force could open the holocron?"

Qybern seemed confused, but answered her, "According to the texts, that is what I have been lead to believe. If I may ask, what is your idea Your Grace?"

"From what I gathered from the texts I have looked over, when Arya contacts me in my dreams, the real Arya is actually using the force to project those visions into my mind. So, if it is the force she is using to reach my mind, can I not somehow use it to open this holocron device?" Cercei nonchalantly walked over and picked the holocron up to examined it.

Qybern sat still for a while thinking about what Cercei had just suggested. The more he mulled over Cercei's idea, the more his jaw hit the floor. He turned and looked at Cercei stunned. "Your Grace, that is brilliant!"

Cercei just smiled. "Do you think I became the first queen to sit alone on the iron throne without some cunning and strategic planning?" the question was a rhetorical one. "So, with that idea in mind, what do you suggest we do?" she asked.

Qybern was already fiddling with some spare tubes and pieces of metal he had in his workshop. "Well, Your Grace. I will attempt to construct a device that rests upon your head and connects directly to the holocron. While it may take a few attempts to get it right, I believe that the device be able to activate the holocron when Arya uses the force to penetrate your mind."

"Perfect. Let me know when it is complete." With that, Cercei left Qybern's workshop.

FIN

Cercei was starting to get impatient. A day had passed since Qybern had begun working on the holocron device. Then another one. And then a third day. Each day started with the ending of a gruesome nightmare, and each night began with the promise of another visit from Arya. She needed that damn device soon. She had ordered everyone in the Red Keep to leave Qybern alone, and she herself only visited him briefly to check on his progress. She was on her way to his workshop about to unleash a verbal assault on the man when she met him sprinting down one of the main halls.

"Your Grace! Your Grace! I believe the contraption is ready!" he nearly toppled into her as he tried to slow down. Cercei's queensguard drew their swords in unison and pointed them at Qybern. Cercei shooed them away with an annoyed wave of her hand.

"Silence fool! Not here. In the workshop." She hissed.

"My apologies Your Grace." Qybern bowed and turned to lead Cercei to the workshop to show her the device.

FIN

Cercei was actually looking forward to sleep for the first time in weeks. Before she went to bed, she had her handmaidens draw her a bath. When she was finished, she dried herself and climbed into bed. As she laid her head down, she put on what looked like a small metal crown. The crown was then attached to the holocron by a complicated-looking system of thin strands of metal. Qybern seemed proud of himself when he showed it to her. He said that his understanding of the ancient being's technology was greatly improved by working on this project. He also said that if it worked, and they were able to access the holocron, then it may be the start of a new era for their civilization. Technology would move fast, and they would be the leaders of the new revolution. Cercei liked the sound of that. But first, this Arya issue needed to be taken care of. She found it hard to fall asleep. Not only was the device not very comfortable, but she knew that Arya could only visit her in her dreams which made sleep harder to come by. But eventually consciousness left her, and she entered her dreams willingly for the first time in weeks.

As usual, it started with Arya calling her name and then calling her all sorts of terrible things. Next, she would come in through the window and float down to the floor.

"Hello Cercei." Arya said. "Still a raging cunt?"

"Ah, Arya." Cercei said as she sat up in bed. She felt her head and found that the dream version of herself did not have the crown device on its head, but that didn't mean that her real self wasn't still wearing it. "Such colorful language for someone so young." She shook her head tsking.

"A side effect from my time with an old mentor." Arya said.

"Well, it's neither here nor there. I'd just like to say, it's nice to see you. I've been waiting for you." Cercei said it with such hunger in her voice that Arya was slightly taken aback.

"Ah, getting snippy with me I see? Perhaps you're starting to think the whole thing is in your head again?" Arya slowly pulled needle out of its sheath.

"No. I've come to the realization that this is all real in some form or another. It's just, it confused me for so long as to how you were doing these things…but I think I know now." Cercei smiled mockingly at Arya. Fear flashed across Arya's face for the briefest of moments. The look of fear was quickly replaced by one of anger.

"You have no idea what I have seen and what I am capable of." Arya growled.

Cercei simply yawned. I can see how you would think that. Honestly, how could a raging cunt like me know anything about the dark side of the force?" her eyes burned with an intense amusement.

Ayra's eyes went wide and she dropped needle sending it clattering across the bedroom floor.

"How! How do you know! Tell me now!" there was a panic in her voice that sent a tingle of pleasure down Cercei's spine. The sound of someone who thought they had you outmaneuvered, and then suddenly realized they we the ones who had been played was so satisfying.

"No." Cercei said in the smuggest voice she could muster.

"Tell me or I will make this dream last longer than the other ones. I will cut you limb from limb alive until you tell me how you know about the force!" Arya was seething at this point.

"Do your worst." Cercei savored every syllable as she said it.

Screaming in anger, Arya ran over to where needle was, picked it up and was coming over to start torturing Cercei when Cercei looked her dead in the eyes and said one last thing. "Just know, your father tried to play the game of thrones with me and look where that got him. Poor noble Eddard Stark. Beheaded by his own self-righteousness. What a fool."

That was too much for Arya. Screaming she dropped Needle, activated her lightsaber and stabbed Cercei right between the eyes.

An ear-peircing scream issued forth from seemingly nowhere and Arya was forced from Cercei's mind. Cercei herself woke up screaming and found that the metal crown device was burning hot on her head. She threw off the device and held her head where it was burnt. She rushed over to her dresser and looked in the mirror. A thin red line was burned where the metal contraption had sat on her head.

"Seven Hells! I am going to flay Qybern alive for this!" She yelled. She was putting on her robe to rush out of the chamber when all of the sudden the holocron on her nightstand flickered to life. Red panels lit up on the sides and strange beeping sounds pierced the air. Cercei froze.

"Sir Gregor!" she yelled towards her door. Seconds later, the door opened and Gregor Clegane's gigantic silent figure stepped into the room at attention.

"Please go find and escort Qybern here."

Gregor obeyed immediately. Cercei sat at the edge of the bed staring at the lit up holocron in wonder. Suddenly a voice issued forth from the device. Cercei didn't know anything about Darth Nihilus, but the second she heard his voice, she knew he was evil and powerful.

"This is the holocron of Darth Nihilus. Do you wish to commune with the Dark Lord?" the voice asked.

Cercei just stared at the holocron in disbelief for several moments. Finally, in a trembling voice, she uttered one word.

"Yes."

FIN

Qybern hurried down the stairs that lead from his chamber. Sir Gregor Clegane had summoned him, and while Sir Gregor remained silent, his presence at Qybern's chambers meant that something had happened to Cercei. He prayed to all gods he knew that his device had worked and not harmed the Queen. He rushed down the corridor to her chambers and then stopped at the door and knocked.

"You may enter." Cercei said from within. Nervously, Qybern pushed the door open and sighed with relief when he saw the Queen sitting on her bed. She looked fine as far as he could tell.

"You summoned me, Your Grace?" he said.

"I believe congratulations are in order my loyal Hand." She said with a devilish smile. She stood up from the bed and as she did, she moved out of the way of the holocron which was now glowing bright red.

Qybern rushed over to the device and looked back and forth between it and the Queen.

"It worked, Your Grace!?" he asked excitedly.

"Ask the Dark Lord yourself." She said.

Qybern's gaze snapped back to the holocron. He looked frightened. Like he was afraid to speak at all. Finally, he spoke.

"Hello?"

"With whom am I now speaking?" the voice of Darth Nihilus demanded.

"I am Qybern, Hand of the Queen." Qybern said. The look on his face told Cercei that he liked the voice even less than she did.

"Ahh. I have just talked with the Queen. If she is to be believed, you are the one who located my holocron and figured out how to activate it, even without the powers of the force. Is that correct?" the voice asked questions as if it were used to having them answered at once.

"Yes." Qybern said.

"Then I must thank you. I've needed to commune for some time now. And feed." There was a thirst behind the last sentence that sent a shiver down the spines of both Cercei and Qybern.

"But, alas." The voice continued. "My consciousness in this holocron can only commune with you and give you information. My spirit, and therefore my true power, reside elsewhere."

"Where is your spirit now?" Cercei asked.

"The last thing I can remember, my spirit was brought to the Sith planet Korriban." The voice replied.

"What do you mean brought? Your spirit could be moved by someone in our own world?" Qybern asked.

"Yes. When I was defeated, I stored all my power in my mask. If you were to find that, you would find my spirit."

Cercei and Qybern both shared an uneasy glance with each other.

"What could your spirit do for us, if we were to find it, that is?" Cercei was sure she was playing a dangerous game. But she had come this far. She wasn't about to turn back.

"It can grant you powers beyond imagination."

Cercei sighed in relief. That is exactly what she wanted to hear.

"We have your mask with us." She said.

"What! Surely this cannot be true. Are you on Korriban?" the voice asked.

"I don't believe so. I don't really know where we are according to you. But we have come across your holocron, and with it, your mask. What do we need to do with the mask to use its powers?" she asked.

"Why wear it, of course." The voice said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Qybern, follow me." Cercei said as she picked up the holocron and left the room. She hid the holocron under her robes and when she got out into the main hall, she told her queensgaurd that she only required Sir Gregor's protection at the moment.

Silently, Cercei, Qybern, and Sir Gregor made their way to the hidden workshop. As they entered, Qybern quickly retrieved the mask from the storage room where it resided. Now that he knew what it was, he thanked the gods that he never tried the mask on for himself. He handed it to Cercei who was standing by a wooden table where she had placed the holocron. She held the mask in her hands, felt the ridges and notches that ran across it's surface. She looked nervously at Qybern, and then she put the mask up to her face.

All at once her body bent backwards, and then it quickly bent forwards while all of her limbs contorted in odd angles. She screamed in pain and Qybern rushed over to try and help. She fell onto the floor shaking, and then all of the sudden she went still. Qybern went to check her pulse, when her arm snapped forward and grabbed his wrist. As she sat up the mask fell from her face and he saw her eyes were as black as coal. Her head cocked to the side as if she was just remembering who Qybern was. Slowly she let go of his wrist and said his name.

"Qybern?"

"Y-yes, Your Grace." Qybern was shaking slightly, but he was also quite fascinated.

"I can feel something, but I don't really know what it is." Cercei said as she stood up with Qybern's help.

"Power." Darth Nihilu's voice said in her head.

Cercei nearly fell back over.

"What is it Your Grace!?" Qybern asked, concerned.

"I can hear him. Darth Nihilus. I can hear his voice in my head." She looked at Qybern with concern.

"Ahhhhhh." Darth Nihilus said in her head. "Your people are a primitive kind indeed. I have just read every thought you have ever had. You are cunning and crave power. You will do well possessing my powers. But my powers will come at a price." Those last hung in the air heavy as iron.

"What price?" Cercei asked.

"I wish to reenter the corporeal plane and have a physical form again." There was a longing in Darth Nihilus's voice.

"And how are we to help you with that?" Cercei asked.

"Your child, the one that grow within you. I wish to imbue it with my spirit once you are ready to give birth. It will become my vessel, and I will feed once again."

Cercei grabbed her stomach and backed away to the far wall of her chamber. "No." she whispered.

"I've seen your mind. I know everything you have ever seen, thought, or felt. You have lost three children already. If this Arya girl comes, she will kill you and your child will die anyways. So, you have two options before you. Lose your child and gain the power to protect yourself and your kingdom. Or die, and have your child die with you. If you refuse, I will remove my power from your body and choose another."

Qybern could not hear Darth Nihilus's voice, but as he watched Cercei's face, he saw her lips begin to quiver and large tears fall from her eyes. It was the type of tears one sheds when they are resigned to a fate they do not want.

"What is wrong Your Grace? What is he saying to you?" Qybern was genuinely worried about her.

"He wants my child." She said.

"For what?"

"To be a vessel for his spirit. He wishes to be human again, if he was ever human to begin with." She replied.

"Surely you won't let him." Qybern said alarmed.

"If I refuse him, he'll remove his power from me." She began to cry just a bit louder. "I have no choice. Either give up my child or die."

"Your Grace. Think of the destruction he could be capable of if he takes physical form on our planet. Do not do this thing." Qybern began pleading with Cercei.

"If I die, this kingdom falls. If I die, you die too Qybern." She looked at him, resolve blossoming on her face.

Darth Nihilus's voice pierced her mind once more. "I sense you have made your decision?"

Cercei tear-streaked face just nodded.

"Very well." Darth Nihilus said. "Now, let me show you what you can do with these powers."

Once again Cercei just nodded. More tears fell from her eyes, but inside her emotions had changed from sadness to rage. Whether Arya knew it or not, she had already won. She had forced Cercei to give up what would likely be her last remaining blood child. The least Cercei could do was make make sure she paid for that.


	13. Ready To Strike

Arya flew through the air at impossible speeds. The force was coursing through her veins and strengthening her body to become extra strong and durable. This was one of the most exhilarating parts of using the force, she thought. Every leap she performed sent her shooting through the air like an arrow unnaturally high and far. She could see now why her brother Bran had liked to climb so high when he was young. She braced herself as her landing spot rose up to meet her in a flash. Landing was the difficult part, but the force cushioned a landing that would most certainly kill a normal man. With rock under her feet once more she jumped and soared through the air again. Maul was ahead of her, but not by much. His black robes snapped in the wind as he landed on a thin spire of rock and then leapt forward impossibly far to land on the next spire. This race had been his idea. Something to help clear their minds he said. There was a place on Dathomir where thin spires of rock littered the landscape in rows like the gigantic teeth of some primordial beast. The top of each spire was about the size of a wagon wheel, and without the force to aid Arya's reaction time and balance, she would most surely fall to her death on the rocks below.

She would have found the whole exercise fun if it wasn't for the new and devastating information she had learned from her last trip into Cercei's mind. Cercei knew about the force. Somehow, she knew. And then there was the part about her being forced out of Cercei's mind as opposed to leaving her mind willingly like she normally did. Arya couldn't begin to guess what had caused that to happen. Just the thought of Cercei knowing about the force was upsetting enough without some other unknown element coming into play. She would have to visit Cercei again and question her more thoroughly. She had let Cercei taunt her last time causing her to lash out. She would remain in control next time, and she would get the answers she sought.

Arya was about to land on another spire when she looked up and saw a huge boulder heading directly for her. Maul must have thrown it at her when she was thinking about Cercei. With barely a glance and a flick of her wrist the boulder split in two and each half flew past her on either side. She landed with grace and reached back behind her. Both boulder halves froze in mid-air. She brought her hand back towards Maul who was standing on the spire directly ahead of her and the boulder halves shot straight towards him at blistering speeds. The look on his face said that he knew he had made a mistake by throwing the bolder at her and he quickly jumped to the next spire as the boulder halves demolished the spire he had just been standing on seconds ago.

"Ha! I seem to have won this race already!" He yelled to her from a spire that was hundreds of feet away from her own. "You have destroyed one of your stepping stones and cannot reach the next spire from there. Remember, destruction can be good, but only if it does not impede your own goals."

"Why do you keep underestimating me master!" Arya yelled back. She concentrated as hard as she could on launching from the spire she was on. She bent her legs and aimed her body at the spire Maul was standing on and felt the force blossom within her. The small bits of rock and dust that clung to the spire began to swirl around it. With everything she could muster, Arya pushed off into the air. The spire underneath her exploded and the shattered rock pulsed outwards in a shockwave pattern from where Arya had launched herself from. And she flew.

Arya could tell that she wasn't actually flying, but she was soaring so high and far in the air, she might as well have been. She watched Maul curse under his breath as she flew over him and landed on the spire that was past his own. She smiled a little bit. At first her feats of raw power had shocked them both every time they had happened. Turning the stones in his cave to dust was one of the first feats that both shocked and amazed them, but as they trained in different disciplines, Arya always seemed to be able to go to a level Maul had never seen before. Eventually, they both came to expect her to do amazing things well beyond the knowledge Maul possessed. All she needed to do was push herself as hard as she could. Maul had admitted several weeks ago that she was more powerful than him and had surpassed him in most areas where the force was concerned. The only area that he had a leg up in was lightsaber combat. Arya knew she would eventually pass him in that as well, but he told her that she was so powerful with the force, she may not even need a lightsaber. She had made sure she got one anyways.

That was about a week ago. Maul had told her that she was versed enough in combat to now build her own lightsaber. She had studied the dozens of lighsabers Maul had in his own collection, and when she finally figured out what style she wanted, Maul had the parts ready for her to construct it. She constructed the handle to be a near perfect replica of Needle's handle. When it came time to put the kyber crystal in the handle, Arya insisted that Maul stir up as many horrible memories of her own past in her mind so that she could infuse her anger into the crystal. It had worked like a charm. The result was a blood red medium-sized blade brighter than any of the lightsabers Maul had shown her. When she had first activated it, Maul was so amazed he asked for a sparring session on the spot.

As she stood on her spire, wind wiping through her short brown hair, she caressed the hilt of the lightsaber hanging from her belt with her fingertips. Balerian's Breath she had named it. To her it was weaponized dragon fire, and she was its master. Her connection with this weapon was personal, and after training with it for a week, she felt as if it were an extension of her own self. She raised her arm in the air and Belerian's Breath sprang up into her open hand. She looked up at Maul, smirked, and then jumped off the side of the spire. She activated the blade and as it slid out of the handle with a hiss, the spire lit up in a deep dark red that didn't differ much from Dathomir's blood red sun. Arya stuck the blade into the rock as she fell past it to slow her decent. This caused the spire to melt and fall apart around her as she landed on the ground.

"See you back at the cave Master!" she called as she sprang off of the ground below causing a shockwave of cracked earth around the spot where she had launched herself.

Maul watched as she landed gracefully on another spire even farther away. He looked behind at the ruined spire that had been shattered from the boulder halves, and then he looked ahead at the spire that Arya had just destroyed with her lightsaber. He was not strong enough to make the jump to the next intact spire, and he would probably die if he jumped off his own. Growling, he rolled his eyes and began to climb down towards the ground.

FIN

Arya landed on the ground that was directly above the training cave. Several large inconspicuous rocks littered the area. These rocks covered up the holes that let in light to the cave below. With a wave of her hand Arya slid one of the rocks to the side and dropped through the open hole.

The cave had remained basically the same from the time she had first seen it. There were rocks scattered around the floor, and rough-looking beds circling a firepit. She had insisted on those first nights to stay out of the ship except when she needed to wash herself or gather supplies. She needed the fresh air, and to her surprise, Maul had agreed to share her lifestyle. He said that it showed strength to be able to take care of oneself outside in a strange environment. Besides, today was the day they would board the ship and breath it's recycled air again. Today they were heading for the planet of Coruscant to obtain some rare holocrons. Holocrons that possibly contained information that would further strengthen her in the force far beyond anything any living force user had ever seen. She began to pack up her things as well as Maul's. There wasn't much to pack, and once everything was as she liked it, she hoisted her pack on her shoulder and walked back down the tunnel to the secret hut entrance that was near Maul's ship.

Arya exited the hut and walked up into the ship. She was quite familiar with all the passages and corridors of the ship's interior now. She deposited Maul's belongings next to the door of his chambers and then entered her own chambers. She washed herself and put on clean robes. Not her light comfortable robes for lounging around the ship. This time she put on tight-fitting robes that she only wore when she sparred with Maul with a lightsaber. The robes were black and hugged her small but powerful frame perfectly. They allowed for maximum movement with minimal restriction and obstructions. When she was finished, she sat cross-legged on one of the chairs in her main living space and closed her eyes, letting the force run through her veins and wash over her spirit. In what seemed like mere seconds, but was probably closer to an hour, she sensed Maul boarding the ship himself. She felt his presence enter the control room and start up the ship. She then felt him walk down the nearest corridor and stop in front of her door.

"Valar Morghulis." Arya said as she cracked an eye open to look at the doorway. The door opened to reveal a clearly angry Maul covered in dirt and grime from head to toe.

"Well, that was quite foolish of you my apprentice." He growled. "The point of that exercise was to clear our minds, not frustrate one of us!"

Arya opened her other eye and uncrossed her legs. Meditation time was clearly over. "My apologies Master. I was merely trying to have a bit of fun, something I barely remember, before we began this mission of ours.

Maul opened his mouth to shout at Arya, but then closed it and scowled instead. "Through my entire life I was never afforded the luxury of having fun. But, I supposed today was my fault. I once again underestimated you like a fool. I'm so used to my own limitations, I keep forgetting that you may not have any." His scowl turned into the faintest of smiles. "I swear you were almost flying today."

Arya noted his calmer, almost friendly demeanor. A trait he had shown several times during her training as he began to see her more as an equal. She wasn't sure how to take that. Maul was so brash and aggressive that if he showed any emotion beside anger it usually threw her off-guard. "Almost, but not quite. I feel that flight may be possible one day for me, and who knows, maybe the key to unlocking that ability lies in one of the holocrons that we are on our way to retrieve. How long until we reach Coruscant?"

"Several hours. I see you are already prepared and dressed. Must have been nice to have all that extra time." Maul said with annoyance.

"It was." Arya shot back.

"Now before I leave you to get myself prepared, I need to know something. Something very important."

Arya gave Maul her full attention.

"I need to know that you are committed to our cause. When we begin our mission, you will come across Jedi who will try to coax you over to their side. Just know that theirs is one of power and control as well. Just the fact that you exist and are as powerful as you are will make them attempt to collect you into their fold. And even if we succeed in our task today, once they know of your presence, they will hunt you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. So, I ask you, are you prepared for today, and are you committed to our cause?"

"Yes." Arya said without hesitation. Their cause was a noble one in her eyes. Obtain power, use that power to deliver swift justice to those that deserved it and remove anyone that stood in their way. She would not be beholden to anyone anymore. She would not allow herself to be in a position where someone had power over her. Maul was a special case. Maul had taken her in, trained her, and helped her make use of the power within her, and for that she begrudgingly felt that she owed him a debt even if she knew he had only done it for his own personal gain. Regardless, he really didn't have power over her anymore, she knew that. He may still be her master, but their relationship was closer to a partnership now. Even so, she promised herself she would leave him if tried to harm her or lord over her. Or if their ideals began to differ too much. But for now, she was indeed committed their cause.

Maul gave her a long calculating stare and Arya stoically held his gaze. Eventually he gave her a slight nod of understanding. They were on the same page.

"Very well. I will go get ready. We will reach Coruscant in three hours." With that, he left her chambers and Arya began to meditate again.

She focused her thoughts. She focused them on her training she had received over the last few weeks. Just as Maul had promised, it had been the most challenging and grueling training she had ever endured. There were some days that she thought Maul had actually decided to kill her through exhaustion. But she had made it through every task, and he had been pleased with her fast progression. She thought of her preparation for this mission. Maul had shown her holographic projections of prominent Jedi including their strengths and weaknesses. Any of the Jedi could possibly cross paths with them during their mission and Maul wanted Arya to be able to identify them and steer clear if needed. She then focused on layouts she had studied that detailed certain portions of Coruscant that they would be visiting so she would be able to navigate the global city without getting lost. Then she focused on her task. Lives would be lost today, but that was ok. She had become comfortable with killing a long time ago. Although, she had promised herself one thing. She would not kill those that did not deserve it. Her task was to infiltrate the Library of the Republic and cause a distraction so that Maul could break into the holocron vault in the Jedi Temple and retrieve Sith and Jedi holocrons brimming with force knowledge. With those holocrons in hand and some measure of time, they would be the most unstoppable force in the galaxy. No injustice would escape their reach, and their quest for justice would start with her list of names, as well as Maul's. Arya smiled with her eyes closed. She knew the mission her and Maul were about to undertake was extremely dangerous, but she found she was in a strange state of peace. She focused on all the force powers that Maul had taught her and how she had mastered each one of them in record time. She would be ok.

A sudden knock on her door told her they were almost there. The last three hours had passed in seemingly no time at all. She grabbed her old pack from her time on Westeros and opened her door to find Maul waiting for her. Together they went to the control room at the front of the ship and the now familiar blue glow of hyperspace met her eyes. They sat in silence and let the hum of the ships engines wash over them. Finally, Maul broke the silence.

"Dathomir is a primitive planet, so you didn't see many things that seemed out of the ordinary compared to your own planet. Coruscant will be much, much different. It is the capital planet of the galaxy and home to over a trillion beings. You have seen some layouts of portions of the city, but to see the planet in person is quite a sight to behold."

Arya said nothing but watched out of the window at the front of the ship as Maul adjusted some dials and levers and the blue tunnel of hyperspace vanished revealing a planet that looked to Arya as if it were devoid of life. There was no blue from water and no green from plants. The entire planet was a black-grey hue littered with bright yellow dots of light. Arya agreed that it was quite a sight to behold. She also knew that she didn't like this planet. No wildlife, no open spaces. Residing on this planet would be like spending your entire life on a starship.

Maul brought the ship through the planet's atmosphere and landed it in a dark courtyard that looked abandoned. Arya guessed that it was anything but. Together, her and Maul put their hoods up and walked down the runway of Maul's ship. Unsurprisingly, a group of humanoid creatures wielding blasters came out of their hiding spots and surrounded both of them. Maul put his hands up and Arya followed his lead. One of the creatures came forward and stopped directly in front of them. As he approached, Arya noticed that this creature was definitely not human. For starters the creature was blue. It also had eyes that were much to large and an oval shaped head that ended in a small hollow circle that must have been the creatures mouth. Suddenly, the creatures mouth started to move, and Arya was shocked to find she could understand him until she remembered that Maul had given her some sort of device that could translate languages for her.

"Come no further. You are unwelcome visitors in this area and must leave immediately." The creature held up his blaster to show he meant business.

"Is that a proper welcome for your leader?" Maul's raspy voice replied. Slowly he took off his hood and revealed himself.

"Lord Maul!" the lead creature exclaimed as he lowered his blaster and waved for the others to do the same. "I did not know it was you. Your ship is different since last we met." He bowed slightly.

"Do not be troubled." Maul replied barely addressing the leader. "I needed another ship. The last one was becoming too recognizable. Tell me Datho, do you have everything ready as I have commanded?" He looked sternly at the leader of the group.

"Y-yes, my lord. We have lodging and disguises ready for you. If I may ask, who is this?" Datho asked gesturing to Arya. Arya looked back and forth between the two of them and realized she was still holding her hands up. She lowered them slowly as Maul responded.

"This is my new apprentice, and she is of no concern of yours." Maul spoke in a commanding voice with these creatures, much like he had spoken with Arya when he had first met her.

"Of-of course my lord." Datho stammered. Clearly, he was flustered in the presence of Maul.

"Good. Show us to our chambers." Maul began to follow Datho, and Arya followed Maul.

As they crossed the dark courtyard Arya looked up and started to get vertigo from looking up at the impossibly tall buildings that towered over them. As her gaze moved upwards she noticed that the light from the city made it impossible to see the stars. It was just another in a long list of reasons that she disliked this planet.

Eventually, they were shown into a small building with very little windows. There were two rooms at the end of a short hallway.

"These are your rooms. You can find all manner of clothing for disguises in the wardrobes inside." Datho nodded at each doorway.

"Thank you Datho. You may leave us now." Maul walked into one of the rooms and gestured for Arya to follow him.

"We will need to disguise ourselves for this mission. While no one knows who you are, I would be recognized miles before I reached the Jedi Temple. Even so, I would prefer that you disguise yourself as well to remain anonymous. You will be pursued by many Jedi after we complete this mission, it would help immensely if they did not know what you look like."

Arya nodded. "I agree. But I have a better idea for disguises." With that she unshouldered her pack and started rummaging around in it.

"Ah, there they are." She said as she pulled out two masks that looked to Maul like they were made out of actual human skin.

"Remember the night you found me?"

Maul nodded.

"Well, I can make it so that we both are wearing the face of someone else. We will essentially be unrecognizable to anyone that may know us."

"That would be perfect." Maul said through a twisted grin.

FIN

On the early eaves of the morning on the planet of Coruscant, two male guards from the Twins in Westeros walked down the street towards the Library of the Republic and the Jedi Temple. One was considerably shorter than the other and they would have seemed out of place, but they were clothed in the typical fashions of the populace. One would think they were just regular humans going about their business, but if they knew what was beneath the robes and faces that they wore, there would be fear and panic in the streets.

"This is…strange." Maul said to Arya as they walked down the street towards their goal. Eventually they would need to split up, but for now they walked together and discussed the final details of their plans.

"What is?" Arya asked.

"I feel as though I am wearing nothing on my face, but no one is cowering in fear from me, so I know that they cannot see my actual face."

"It is a curious practice, wearing another's face. One I still don't fully understand."

"Very well. Pay attention now. We will be splitting up in the next block. You know the plan?" Maul seemed somewhat apprehensive.

"Yes. Create a diversion large enough to draw the Jedi away from the temple allowing you to get inside and infiltrate the holocron vault." Arya said.

"And once I send you the signal?" the signal was a small device on her wrist. It would blink red once Maul's task was complete. If it blinked green, then something had gone wrong.

"Return to the ship whether things go good or bad, and most importantly, do not be followed." Arya said in a somewhat annoyed tone. They had been over this plan hundreds of times. Plus, she trusted in her force abilities and expertise at disguising herself if things went really wrong. She was honestly more worried about Maul. He was about to break into one of the most heavily guarded facility in the galaxy with hundreds of force-wielding Jedi. That's why her task of drawing them away was so important.

"Correct. Now, if you really want to draw the Jedi towards your location, just activate your red lightsaber and see what happens. You'll see just how hated you really are in their eyes." Maul said this through clenched teeth.

"Yes master."

"Good." Maul looked at the intersection of streets nervously. "This is where we part ways. Good luck."

With a nod Maul turned and walked down a side street that headed towards the Jedi Temple. Arya stood still for a moment. The full gravity of the situation was finally hitting her. She was now alone on a densely populated alien planet that was millions if not billions of miles from her own world, and she we about to draw some of the most powerful knights in the galaxy to her location with the intention of provoking them. Her place in the universe had changed drastically since Maul had found her at the Twins. That moment felt like almost a lifetime ago. She shook herself out of her daydream and began walking the final few blocks to the Library of the Republic.


	14. Distraction and Infiltration

Arya walked up to the Library of the Republic and looked up. The building was insanely massive. According to Maul, this building held the whole of the knowledge of the Galactic Republic. She got a sudden bought of vertigo and had to look back down until her head stopped spinning. The library made the Red Keep look like a tiny hut. Massive columns lined a giant stone staircase that lead up the main entrance. Arya made her way up to the doors leading inside and paused, the time had finally come.

As she walked in, she thought about a decision she had made before her and Maul had left Dathomir. She would not kill anyone today. Not unless it was absolutely necessary for survival. That was something that had always bothered her when she had trained at the temple of the Many-Faced God. They would kill anyone for the right price even if that person did not really deserve death. She had killed her fair share of people, but almost all had deserved death in one form or another. So, now she would only kill if she herself was about to be killed, or if she knew that her target was worthy to be pierced on the end of her blade. She figured Maul wouldn't approve, but he wasn't with her at the moment. Besides, she was pretty sure she could create an affective distraction without killing anyone.

With her heart pounding in her chest she walked to the center of the massive entrance chamber. It was dome-shaped and had a rear entrance that led to shelves and shelves worth of knowledge. _The Measters at the Citadel would have a field day here._ she thought. She noticed a large statue of the symbol for the Galactic Republic that stood in the middle of the chamber. She stared up at the statue for a moment and then looked around. Humans and alien creatures alike walked around going about their daily business and showing her little interest. A passing few looked up and nodded respectfully to her.

She took a deep breath and jumped unnaturally high to land on top of the statue. That got the attention of many of the library's visitors who pointed and gasped as Arya surveyed the crowd above. She held her hand out to her side and Belerian's Breath jumped into her palm. Arya took one last look at the crowd in a peaceful state and then activated her lightsaber. All hell broke loose.

Most of the crowd screamed and started running for the exits. Others were using communication devices to call for help. Arya spun to get a good look of the entire chamber, and as she did, she noticed several blades of green and blue spring into view. Apparently, there had already been a few Jedi here. The Jedi ran towards her as everyone else ran away. They finally pulled up short and Arya was able to get a good look at their faces. None of them had been shown to her by Maul in their preparation for today. That most likely meant they were not a threat to her.

"Sith!" a large male Jedi spat at her. "Come with us peacefully or we will be forced to cut you down."

"I am not Sith, and I will not come with you." Arya said calmly. "What have I done wrong?" She found everyone's reaction to her red lightsaber genuinely interesting. Maul was right. The Sith had a reputation laced with terror.

"Your red lightsaber says enough about who you are. Now come with us quietly or we will bring you in by force." A young female Jedi said.

"No." Arya said as she jumped down off of the statue to stand in front of the Jedi. "And I do not wish to fight anyone. I have no quarrel with any of you. Now leave me be." She turned to walk farther into the library, but one of the male Jedi jumped over her and landed in front to block her way. His blade was pointed directly at her heart.

Arya barely looked amused. "I must give you warning. If you intend to fight me, you will lose."

"Very well. We will see about that." The female Jedi said.

All told, there were five Jedi. Two males and three females. All of them had just recently gained the rank of Master from the Jedi academy after years of intensive training that began when they were children. To them, one versus five were very good odds, and the swell of pride from their recent promotion to Master gave them a feeling of invincibility. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to know that Arya was different, and much, much more powerful.

All five jumped at Arya simultaneously with precise strikes from their lightsabers. Arya danced among them as if she had practiced these moves all her life. She blocked two of the lightsabers with her own using blindingly quick strikes. The other three missed her by mere inches. She had sent a burst of force energy from her palm to disrupt the trajectory of their blades.

Arya jumped high over the circle of Jedi, so she would not be surrounded by them. As she flew though the air, she reached behind her and used the force to pull the large metal statue down on top of the three Jedi closest to it. Two of them were able to jump out of the way, but one of the female Jedi was not as quick and her legs were caught under the weight of the statue. As Arya headed toward the ground, she could sense that a male and female Jedi were following her arc through the air and knew they would strike as soon as she landed. She landed with her back to them and could feel the swift slashes heading straight for the back of her neck. She did not have enough time to turn around, but it didn't matter. She was able to bring her sword hand behind her and block their flurry of strikes without looking. She spun around and was greeted with shocked expressions from the two Jedi who had attacked, leaving her a slight opening. _They should know better than to give an opponent such a large window to strike_ Arya thought. Arya slashed the female Jedi across his shoulder and ducked under a blow from the male Jedi. With an exact swing she cut the sword hand from the male Jedi as it passed over her head. The Jedi screamed in pain and held his wrist where his hand had been. Arya place her hand on his chest and sent out a small burst of force energy causing him to fly across the chamber and crash into the far wall knocking him unconscious. The female Jedi watched all of this with an expression of horror while holding her injured shoulder. Sensing she was outmatched, she jumped away from Arya to join the other two Jedi who were using the force in an attempt to lift the statue off of the Jedi who's legs had been crushed.

Arya walked over to the three remaining Jedi who were still standing. As she walked, she noted the lack of blood from her strikes. It was strange to her that you could cut off entire appendages and hardly see any blood from the wounds. The whole thing made the fight seem cleaner and less visceral than the fights she had been in back in Westeros.

She reached her hand to the side and the lightsaber from the Jedi whose hand was severed zipped across the room into her non-sword hand. She held her hand out and let the lightsaber float just above her open palm.

"I told you I do not want to fight." Arya said. "And if I really wanted to, I would not need a lightsaber to defeat you." As she said this, the lightsaber floating above her palm began to collapse in on itself as Arya used the force to crush it. The kyber crystal inside exploded which would have sent pieces of shrapnel ripping through Arya's body. But the pieces of lightsaber and the explosion from the kyber crystal were froze in mid-air above Arya's palm. It was as if time had stopped in that exact location. Eventually, the explosion was too hot, and the pieces of metal began to glow orange. Arya simply let the entire thing collapse into a ball of molten metal. She looked at the two Jedi still trying to lift the statue and felt pity for them. She let the molten wreck of a lightsaber fall to the floor and flicked two fingers upward lifting the statue off the wounded Jedi and sending it crashing into the back of the entrance chamber. The Jedi stared in awe of Arya's raw strength for a moment and then ran over to their friend. She wasn't dead, but her legs were a mangles mess. The Jedi who Arya had slashed across the shoulder kept an eye on her with her lightsaber drawn, her other arm dangled at her side.

The Jedi with the crushed legs moaned in pain. Her two allies crouched over her in a protective manner.

"I would get her to a medical droid if I were you." Arya said.

One of the Jedi looked up and growled at Arya. "Why!?" she screamed.

"You attacked me." Arya said. "I told you I was not a Sith, and I told you I did not want to fight."

"Let us leave this place and alert the Jedi Counsel." One of them said.

"That won't be necessary." Arya said. "If they weren't on their way here already, they will be now." With that, she revealed her presence to them, something she had been hiding since her and Maul had left for Coruscant.

All three Jedi grabbed their chests and staggered as the disturbance that Arya's presence left in the force hit them. Eventually, they regained their composure.

"Who are you?" one of the Jedi grunted through the exertion he was feeling from Arya's presence.

"I'm no one...for now." Arya responded.

Just then, the doors behind Arya burst open and she turned to see a dozen or so guards rush into the chamber. Each one trained a blaster on her position and sent a volley of blaster bolts shooting in her direction. Maul had taught her what to do next. She blocked each bolt with precision and deflected them back at the guards. In a matter of seconds, half the guards were holding their shooting hands in pain where Arya had directed their blaster bolts to strike. Arya looked back for a brief moment and saw that the Jedi were escaping from the chamber with their wounded while she was distracted with the guards.

In that moment of distraction, a blaster bold grazed her abdomen causing her side to light up in a searing pain. Arya yelled and stumbled to the ground. She looked back at the guards who seemed to be encouraged from the recent turn of events. She stood up and screamed at them with one hand holding her side and her other hand held out in front of her. As the blaster bolts got close to Arya, they would suddenly curve around her. It was as if she had formed a bubble of protective force energy around herself. Finally, Arya used the force to rip the blasters from the guard's hands and shattered them into pieces. Then she sent out stronger shockwave of force energy flinging the guards bodies into the wall behind them like rag dolls.

And just like that, she was alone. Incapacitated bodies littered the entrance to the library, but none of them stirred. Panting, and holding her injured side, Arya turned on her heel and walked farther into the building.

FIN

Maul could not believe what had just happened. He had made his way to the Jedi temple, using the five spires of the temple as a guide through the busy city streets. Then he had walked up the steps and straight through the front entrance. No one had given him so much as a second glance. The mask Arya had given him was the most effective form of disguise he had ever seen, and it seemed to be paying dividends already.

The whole situation felt strange to Maul. Not that it was strange to be deep in an enemy stronghold. He had done his fair share of sneaking around and infiltrating enemy lairs. What was strange to Maul was that he was so far out in the open, and he felt exposed, even if no one noticed him.

He walked the path he had mapped out in his head and hoped that his contacts had given him good blueprints of the temple. Eventually he found a small side corridor with no one in it and ducked inside. Maul watched from the corridor as young Jedi apprentices walked back and forth going about their business. He watched as a few familiar faces walked past as well; most noticeably Mace Windu and Kit Fisto. Maul hoped that Arya would not come face to face with those two. They had a reputation of being some of the most skilled lightsaber dualists in the galaxy.

Maul waited for a short time. _What is taking the girl so long?_ He thought. He was about to leave his hiding spot and exit the temple to see what had become of his apprentice, and then he felt it. The strong disturbance in the force that he had felt many times before when training with Arya. She must have revealed her presence in the Library of the Republic. Maul watched with amusement as Jedi both young and old grabbed their chests and staggered from the disturbance. _Well, that will clean this temple out quickly._ he thought. He watched with a grin on his face as the serene scene in the temple became one of chaos. Jedi masters ushered their young padawans out of the temple telling them to go home. He continued to watch as dozens of Jedi ran for the temple's exit in the direction of the library. Eventually, he was alone.

 _That was almost too easy_. he thought. As he slipped out of his hiding place, he hoped that Arya would be smart with her distraction and not get herself captured or killed. He had trained her as best he could, and she was extremely powerful, but he just watched dozens of the best fighters in the galaxy run towards her position. He hoped that it wasn't a mistake to put her thought a test this tough so early. He would need to be quick.

He followed the appropriate corridors and lifts mapped out in his head and eventually came to the circular corridor that wrapped around the holocron vault. He put on a small set of goggles and through the lenses he was able to see small beams of invisible light that moved around the corridor. If any one of the beams hit him, it would set off an alarm and bring many of the Jedi running back towards the temple. His informants had done well providing accurate information of the vault's defenses. Apparently, there had been a theft in the vault recently and security measures had been ramped up considerably.

He pulled out two small handles that had strong electro magnets on the ends of them. Using just his arms, he began to move his large and muscular frame up and along the wall of the corridor. As beams got close to him, he maneuvered his body around them. It was a feat of pure strength, but Maul had kept his body in impeccable shape and he was able to reach the section of wall above the vault entrance with minimal effort. Unfortunately, on either side of the vault door were two Jedi guards. Most likely they were told not to leave their post under any circumstance. Unfortunately for them, they were an obstacle to Maul and would need to be dealt with.

Maul positioned himself directly above and between the Jedi with his feet dangling down. He counted to three and let go, pushing off one of the handles slightly to send his body spinning. As he dropped between the guards, he activated the two single-blade lightsabers he had brought with him, one blue and one green, and let his spinning momentum carry the blades through both guard's necks. Maul's surprise attack was too fast to react to, even for a Jedi, and with a series of thuds, the heads and bodies of each guard hit the ground. He had brought a green and a blue lightsaber so that when the Jedi masters reviewed the recordings, they would not immediately think that he was a Sith, or former Sith. It would also help to create unease and mistrust amongst their ranks.

Maul stared at the door for a moment and then got to work. He delved into the door's inner workings with his mind and found a switch inside the near wall that could only be flipped by a force adept. The large door dilated open to reveal a tunnel-like passage with a matching door at the end. He waked through the passage and flipped the switch on the other door as well causing it to expand open and reveal a dark chamber beyond. Maul took a few steps in and was immediately awash in a soft blue light. He was finally here. Here, where thousands and thousands of years of some of the deepest darkest secrets in the galaxy resided. An enormous pillar stood in the middle of the dark cavernous room. The only light was the blue light emitted from the holocrons themselves which were tucked away in small recessed chambers in the central pillar as well as along sections of the surrounding vault walls. Maul pulled out a small pack that he had brought with him and began to fill it up with the holocrons he had come to acquire. There were several Jedi holocrons that he was particularly interested in, and eventually he located those residing on the central pillar. After obtaining the few Jedi holocrons he wanted, Maul turned his attention to the main reason he had broken into this vault. For the Jedi didn't keep only Jedi holocrons in the vault. They kept acquired Sith holocrons in the vault as well. Maul found it curious that the Jedi kept the Sith holocrons they managed to obtain. If Sith holocrons really housed deep forgotten secrets of the dark side of the force, then why did the Jedi not simply destroy them? Why keep them? Maul already knew the answer to that. They kept them because there was power in those Sith holocrons. Power that the Jedi could possibly use if ever they needed. This vault stank of hypocrisy.

Maul walked around the outside wall and eventually came to the spot that his informants had told him about. That bit of information had been the hardest to obtain. Somewhere hidden in this vault was a second vault where the Sith holocrons were stored. Where this second vault resided was one of the Jedi Counsel's deepest darkest secrets. But his informants had come through for him. He touched the flat surface of the wall and couldn't feel anything of note. But like the door to get into the vault, this piece of wall held a switch inside. Maul felt for it with his mind and almost missed it. It was so small and delicate that no one would accidentally find it unless they knew exactly where to look. Maul flipped it. The section of wall in front of him recessed and slid to the side bathing Maul in a contrasting red glow. There they were. Generations of Sith force knowledge and weapon advancements sitting piled on top of each other ripe for the taking. Maul wanted to take them all, but he didn't have the time nor the means to bring all of them with him. Besides, he had specific descriptions of the ones he sought, and those should be enough. Once he and Arya rose to power, they would be able to come back here and plunder the vault's secrets without the possibility of being interrupted. So, he quickly slipped the ones he wanted into the pack he had brought with him. As he picked each one up, he thought about the fact that he was holding an item that had once been held by some of the most powerful Sith Lords ever known.

"No one besides the Jedi Council members are allowed in this room." A voice behind Maul said. Maul stiffened and turned around slowly. He knew that voice. It belonged to a Jedi he had obsessed over ever since that fateful day on Naboo. Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Maul dropped his pack and growled at him activating both of his lightsabers. Kenobi activated his own lightsaber and the two of them began to circle each other.

"I don't recognize you, but there is something familiar about your presence." Kenobi seemed slightly troubled. "I see your green and blue lightsabers, but it is easy to tell that you are not a Jedi."

Maul realized that he was still wearing the mask he had gotten from Arya. Kenobi wouldn't know who he was. Every muscle in his body stained against itself to keep him from springing at the Jedi knight who had ruined his life. He strained so hard against his own want to kill Kenobi that he began to see red. Eventually he calmed himself and remembered the job he had come here to do. One day he would kill Kenobi, but that day would have to wait. He began to circle so that he was near the central pillar of holocrons and closer to the vault doors than Kenobi.

"Who are you?" Kenobi asked, still puzzled.

"I'm no one." Maul said, using a phrase he had heard Arya mutter before. He found he liked it. It sounded ominous, and it was vague and confusing enough to break Kenobi's concentration for a millisecond.

Maul took his green lightsaber and shoved the blade into the base of the holocron pillar up to the hilt. The pillar started to melt and the closest holocrons began to pop and spark as they submitted to the heat of the blade. Kenobi ran towards the lightsaber to pull it out and save the precious Jedi knowledge that was currently being destroyed. With Kenobi was distracted, Maul rushed towards the exit and used the force to pull his pack to him. As he ran through the passage and out the doorway, he flipped the switches with his mind to close the doors and then used the force to pull a section of the ceiling down in front of the doors to block them. Hopefully that would delay Kenobi for awhile. There was no time to avoid the beams in the hallway, so Maul just ran as hard as he could as alarms began to sound through the temple.


	15. A Brutal Fight and a Tempting Offer

Arya walked past shelves and shelves of data housed inside blue databanks that resided in the Library of the Republic. Belerian's Breath was still activated in her hand and as people saw her they fled to any exit they could find. She had run into several more Jedi along the way and had quickly incapacitated them. Eventually, she came to a chamber that opened up wide and high above her revealing hundreds of more levels just like the one she was traversing. She crouched down and summoned as much force energy as she could before springing upward. The ground cracked underneath her in a circular pattern, shattering the shelves of nearby records. She flew through the air as if she were shot out of a cannon and dozens of levels flew past her in a blur as she ascended. When her speed slowed down, she pushed off one of the far walls with the force and that in turn moved her over the railing of the nearest level and onto soft carpet. She walked over to the railing she had just flown over and peered down. The ground floor teemed with people who must have just come out of hiding after she had jumped away. The people now looked to be about the size of ants. She must have flown several hundred feet in a single bound.

As she walked, she could feel the presence of dozens of Jedi heading towards the library. One thing she noticed was that the their presence felt different than Maul's. It was as if the Jedi running in her direction were emanating pure light. It was different with her master. Every time she felt Maul's presence it had always reminded her of power hidden in the shadows. She had first noticed the difference between the light and the dark when she had fought the Jedi in the entrance chamber. Though, the presence of those first Jedi seemed weak compared to the Jedi who were headed her way now. She hid her own presence and walked farther into the level she had landed upon. She would just need to keep revealing herself and then hiding to send the approaching Jedi on a wild goose chase. Hopefully, she would not need to confront any of them and Maul would get the time he needed.

As she walked, she began to feel a disturbance in the force. It was as if there was a large shadow looming over her thoughts. The feeling was similar to what she felt with Maul's presence, but much stronger. It was probably closer to what Maul felt when she revealed her presence to him. As she walked through the carpeted hallway, she noticed a pair of ornate double doors and immediately made for them. They were locked, but a quick push on the lock with the force sent the doors swinging open. She quickly slipped inside and closed the doors behind her. When she turned around she found herself in a large lavish chamber with wall hangings and blood-red carpet. There were a small number of shelves in the chamber on either sidewall, and in the center of the chamber sat one of the largest tables Arya had ever seen. She walked to the end of the room and sat in the chair at the head of the table. Her presence was hidden, so most likely no one would find her here. Although the disturbance she felt in the force was growing stronger by the second.

Arya decided she had waited long enough and was just about to leave when the door she had entered minutes before opened slowly and someone walked into the room. The figure was male in shape and cloaked in all black. When he looked up, Arya could see that his nose and mouth were covered in black cloth so that only his eyes were showing.

"I think it's best if you leave." Arya said as she climbed up on the table and activated her lightsaber. Not only did the figure not flinch or run away, it began to laugh with one of the evilest sounding cackles Arya had ever heard. As it laughed, Arya felt the disturbance in the force grow even stronger. She grabbed her chest and nearly stumbled. _So that's what that feels like._ She thought.

"Are you the one who is responsible for the disturbance in the force that I felt moments ago?" its voice was high-pitched and rough and dripped of pure evil.

Arya said nothing. She simply revealed herself to the figure causing it to barely flinch in pain.

"Ooooahahaha." It muttered as if the pain it had just felt was causing it pleasure. "My oh my, you are a strong one, aren't you? And steeped in the dark side no less. An apprentice like you would be extremely useful for my plans. Tell me, are you looking to learn more about the dark side of the force?"

Arya scoffed at that. "I already have a master. And I doubt there is much you could teach me." She said.

"THAT is where you are so very wrong." The figure replied as if amused and angry all at the same time. "Maul could not possibly teach anyone as powerful as yourself anything of real consequence."

Arya started. How could this person know about Maul? She must have let her surprise show on her face because the figure responded to it.

"Yes, I know that Maul is your master. I can smell his stench all over you. The way you conduct yourself in the force tells me that much. But tell me, would you rather spend time learning from an insignificant, half-broken former Sith, or would you rather learn from a powerful Sith Lord, such as his former master?" The figure raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Sideous." Arya entered a defensive stance. Sideous didn't move from his spot at the other end of the table. Well this was definitely a wrinkle in their plans. Sideous was supposedly one of the most powerful force users Maul had ever known. This would not end well.

"Ah, I see he has told you about me. He has most likely poisoned your mind against me as well. Well, think what you wish, but consider this. Maul is a merely a trickling stream, where as I am a thundering waterfall. You are strong like me too, I can feel it in you. Join me, and I will show you power that Maul could never even dream of. You don't even have to be my apprentice. You could be my equal, and together no one would oppose us." As he talked, his voice became sweeter and visions of power blossomed in Arya's thoughts. What could she accomplish with a teacher like this? Maul had already unlocked so much power in her, she was almost afraid to imagine what Sideous could get her to be able to do. Under his tutelage she would become unstoppable. She could fix her own broken world and make it how she saw fit. She could wipe the Lannisters from the history books. She could put whoever she wanted on the Iron Throne and be their loyal sword. Everyone would live under the rule of whoever she chose. She could bring peace to Westeros by the end of her lightsaber.

Sideous merely stood there and watched her as she contemplated all he had said. As her thoughts swirled amidst visions of a peaceful Westeros and her own chosen kingdom, Sideous's eyes gave away a smile of triumph that was hidden underneath the cloth that was covering the bottom of his face. Arya could tell that he was peering into her thoughts.

"Yes." Sideous said. "With the power I can teach you, armies would bend the knee before you. You could rebuild your home world and make it the way you wanted. No one would oppose you. Your enemies would cower in fear of you and your loved ones would always be protected. No one you love would ever have to die." Sideous's voice was like pure honey dripping into her mind, but something about the last words he spoke felt wrong to Arya for some reason. No one she loved would ever have to die. Ever. Suddenly, and she did not know why, she remembered something her old mentor Jaquen H'ghar had told her, 'A minute, an hour, a month. Death is certain. The time is not.'. His monotonous voice pierced through Sideous's words and gave her the clarity she needed. Valar Morghulis: All men must die. No one, not even this strong and twisted individual in front of her would escape the God of Death. This Sith Lord's words were poison and lies. He would not teach her everything he knew for fear of his own mortality and her ability to make that mortality a reality. Maul had told her Sideous's back story. About how Sideous had learned everything he needed to know from his old master Darth Plagueis, and then used force lightning to slowly torture Plagueis to death. She could not trust anything that came from Sideous's lips.

Sideous must have sensed Arya's thoughts turning on him because he jumped onto the enormous table with an inhuman and ear-piercing shriek. When he landed, he activated his lightsaber and held it up high with the blade pointing directly at Arya. Arya emerged from her thoughts and entered her defensive stance once again, Belerian's Breath hummed in her hand.

"You fool!" Sideous screeched. "You must be too stupid to see the opportunity that I have laid before you. If you want to follow that sad Dothmirian Maul and never realize your true potential, then so be it. Unfortunately, you will never get the chance. You are too powerful an enemy to be left alive."

With that, Sideous lunged forward spinning inhumanly fast with his blade pointed straight at Arya's heart. He almost caught her off guard, but Maul's teaching proved effective as she was able to drop to the ground and deflect his lightsaber with her own. He slid to a stop on the table behind her and looked up at her, growling as he did so. He came in for another attack with his lightsaber held high, and right before he reached Arya he leapt to the side, landing on the wall of the chamber and then springing back at her from a high angle. All Arya saw was billowed out robes and Sideous's lightsaber hidden within. As he passed her, his blade shot out from among his robes and Arya missed blocking it by mere inches allowing it to strike her left shoulder. She yelled in pain, and Sideous laughed with amusement.

Arya moved her shoulder, and while it hurt, it wasn't enough to keep her from fighting. _Enough of being on the defensive._ She thought. With a growl of her own she sprang at Sideous. He seemed to think she was hurt worse than she was because she caught him slightly off guard and was able to strike his side, but apparently that was not enough to slow him. Her next blow was aimed straight for his neck, but he caught the strike with his blade. They pressed their blades together, neither of them relinquishing an inch to the other. As she stared into the eyes of Sideous, she saw that they were red and yellow, like Mauls. There was a difference though. Maul's eyes seemed more dull and sad, while Sideous's seemed to glow and reflect with a hatred buried deep within his soul.

Arya slowly removed one of her hands from the hilt of her lightsaber and was still able to hold Sideous's own blade at bay. She reached to the back of her neck and in a quick fluid motion, she pulled the face she was disguising herself with off to reveal another face. Her new face was still not her own. She had prepared for needing to change her face multiple times during this mission, so she was currently wearing several of them. Sideous looked at her with a stupefied look on his face. Apparently, even with all his strength and knowledge, he had never seen anything like that before. Sure, Maul had told her about changelings, but this was different. In his moment of distraction Arya was able to shove his lightsaber back far enough to give her room to kick off of his chest and fly to the far wall. Sideous went flying into the opposite wall and crumpled onto the floor.

Arya pushed off the wall towards Sideous, but right before she reached him he rolled unnaturally fast and ducked out of the way of her lightsaber. Both of them jumped back up onto the table and their dance of blades began. Trading blow after blow, Arya began to sense that their skill with a lightsaber was evenly matched, and she could see in Sideous's eyes that he was realizing the same thing. With fluid feints and parries they battled each other. Finally, Sideous abandonded his lightsaber all together and started thowing shelves and chairs at Arya. He was able to throw these objects with an insane amount of velocity, but Arya was able to dodge everything Sideous threw at her. He threw one last chair at Arya and she used the force to catch it and throw it back at him. Sideous dove out of the way and let forth an animalistic scream of frustration. Arya climbed back onto the partially ruined table and activated her lightsaber again.

"Enough with the lightsabers." Sideous croaked. "Time for you to feel the full power of the dark side of the force." Then he pointed his fingertips at Arya and let forth a torrent of force lightning. Nothing Arya had ever felt before that moment hurt as much as the electricity that coarsed through her body. She convulsed on the floor as her body began to smoke from the heat. Sideous laughed mercilessly. Maul had not prepared her for this. _This is where I die._ she thought. But even as she felt death coming for her, she noticed that the pain from the force lightning didn't hurt as much anymore. In fact, the more Sideous tortured her, the less it hurt. She looked down at her body and noticed a shimmering blue translucent shield began to form around her body. It was as if her body was naturally reacting to the pain and the force was forming a barrier to protect her and deflect the lightning. One of the deflected bolts shot back at Sideous and sent sliding to the center of the table where he crumpled to the floor.

As Sideous lay on his back, a shimmering blue Arya walked slowly over to him and stood on his chest. She pushed off of him, jumping straight up towards the ceiling which caused the great table to split in half underneath Sideous. She flew hundreds of feet all the way to the ceiling where she found convenient structural beams that she could hold onto. Down below she saw Sideous laying in between the two halves of the table. He looked particularly feeble from Arya's vantage point, but he was definitely still alive. _Tough son of a bitch_. Arya thought. Still holding onto the beam, Arya swung upside down and placed her feet on the ceiling of the room. She bent her legs but kept her feet pressed to the ceiling. She deactivated Belarian's Breath and hung it on her belt. Then she reached to the other side of her belt and grabbed Needle. With a steady hand, she held the point so that it aimed directly at Sideous hundreds of feet below. With a grunt of exertion, she pushed off of the ceiling and rocketed towards the ground with Needle's point aimed true. Seconds before she reached him, she saw him come to and growl in frustration. He rolled out of the way and scuttled up the wall of the chamber like an insect. His movements were fast, even for a Sith. He reached an air duct and slithered inside. Arya hit the ground with so much force that the floor exploded and the two haves of the table shattered into splinters. She shot straight through the floor and several dozen floors below it and landed with a thud.

Arya slowly stood up and looked around. Most the room she had just landed in was now destroyed from the impact of her landing. The only reason she could think of as to why she was still alive was the force shield around her body which now looked as if it was fading away. She looked up and saw what looked like a tunnel, but must have been her path when she crashed through all of the library floors. At the top floor she could sense that the Jedi had just burst into the room where her and Sideous had fought. He was probably long gone by now.

She noticed several faces peering over the edge of the top-most hole.

"Sith!" yelled one of the Jedi who were peering down into the hole. "Do not move. The library is surrounded with Jedi."

Arya was amused by that and crouched on the ground again. She jumped and shot through the tunnel of holes she her body had created and flew past the surprised Jedi at the top hole. She landed on the opposite side of the hole and turned around. There were probably a dozen Jedi on the other side, and most of them she recognized from her training with Maul. Kit Fisto. Mace Windu. Plo Koon…She needed to get out of there, fast.

Mace Windu took several steps forward. "By the order of the Galactic Republic, you are hereby placed under arrest and will await trial by the Galactic Senate"

"No, I am not." Arya said.

"No?" Mace Windu raised an eyebrow in Arya's direction. "Then we will bring you in, Sith. You are the one we have been searching for The one who has been causing a great disturbance in the force. We will not let you get away." As he said this, he activated his lightsaber which shown a brilliant shade of purple.

"Watch the security footage from this room. I'm not the one you are looking for." Arya said as she took several slow steps backwards and looked up. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling from where she had pushed off of it. A clear blue sky shown through the hole. Arya aimed for the sky beyond and jumped. She shot up and through the hole, landing on the edge of the ruined roof. When she looked down, she saw expressions of both awe and frustration from the Jedi below.

"You can run Sith Lord, but we will hunt you, and we will find you!" Windu yelled up after her.

"I doubt that." Arya whispered, and jumped off the top of the Library.


	16. A Change of Plans

Arya jumped over the wall of buildings surrounding the courtyard where Maul had landed his ship. The alien guards once again emerged from their hiding places and surrounded her with blasters trained on her position until she pulled off the faces she was wearing and revealed her identity to them. They quickly lowered their weapons and let her pass into Maul's ship.

By bounding through the city, she had given the pursuing Jedi quite the chase. After she had jumped off of the Library of the Republic, she had been spotted and tailed by several Jedi scouts. Eventually, in a market square she had been able to break their line of sight. It was then that she had removed one of her faces, threw a cloak that she had grabbed from a nearby vendor around her shoulders and hid her presence from the force. She did it all in such a singular quick and fluid motion that even if someone had been watching her, the change in appearance and wardrobe would have been so subtle they would have hardly noticed what had happened. It had been quite amusing to watch the confused Jedi wander through the market place wondering how they had lost her. Of course, to them she would be a he, because the face they had seen her wearing was a male one.

Arya had been hiding in plain sight when the indicator on her wrist began to blink green. Something had gone wrong with Maul's part of the plan. She had slipped out of the market place and returned to the ship as quickly as she could. But now that she was here, in Maul's ship with the green blinking indicator on her wrist, she realized she had a problem. Maul had not told her what to do if things when awry aside from returning to the ship. She certainly didn't know how to fly his ship.

She returned to her own quarters, showered and changed. She had been covered in debris from her fight with Sideous and if she needed to venture back out into the city, she didn't want her familiar clothes to be spotted. After she was washed and changed, she made her way to the control room of the ship.

Sitting in the main seat in the control room, Arya was contemplating what to do next when she saw a hooded and cloaked Maul enter the courtyard. She let go a sigh of relief and waited for Maul to get into the ship, so they could get out of there. She watched the alien guards surround Maul with their blasters just as they did to her. He reached up and threw his hood off to show them the he was really Maul. Only, it wasn't Maul. Nor was it the face that she had given Maul to wear. Arya could feel his presence now although it was subtle. He was a Jedi.

A loud exchange took place between the Jedi wearing Maul's clothes and Datho, when all of the sudden the man activated a green lightsaber and the alien guards opened fire. The Jedi deflected all of the blaster bolts and moved amongst the alien guards, killing as he went. It all happened so fast that Arya didn't have time to react and stop him.

The Jedi made for the ship's ramp after every guard in the courtyard was either dead or had run away. Arya quickly slipped on a couple of her faces and made for the top of the ship's ramp herself.

As the Jedi stepped onto the ramp, Arya looked down at him in anger, but pretended to be afraid. The Jedi activated his lightsaber and Arya jumped as if the sight of a lightsaber startled her.

"Not another step. You are in the ship of a captured enemy of the Jedi Counsel, and are therefore an enemy as well. I will bring you to the Jedi Temple to be questioned. Please come quietly." The Jedi beckoned Arya to come down the ramp and join him.

Arya walked towards the Jedi and had to restrain herself from simply beating this Jedi to a pulp until he told her where Maul was. She let him put restraining cuffs on her wrists and walk her to his speeder parked outside of the courtyard. The speeder took off towards the Jedi Temple. To him, she was just a follower of Maul's – perhaps a simple aid of some sort. There was no way for him to know she was an apprentice to a powerful ex-Sith Lord, who was exploding with power herself. Sure, should could have gotten the information out of this Jedi and then infiltrated the temple. But why do all that work when she could just let him take her right where she wanted to go without raising any alarms?

The speeder pulled up in front of the impressive five-spired building that was the Jedi Temple. Arya could feel so many force users inside, she began to worry that coming here was a mistake. She kept her own connection to the force hidden so that the Jedi would keep their guard down. Hopefully they would not suspect her power. Going forward, she would have to play dumb and tread lightly. He anonymity was her greatest strength here, because even if she was the most powerful force user anyone had ever seen, she was vastly outnumbered. And besides, she could feel several Jedi in the temple who would most certainly give her trouble if they found her out.

They walked up the steps to the temple and through the main corridor. As they walked, she noticed some familiar faces that had been in the room where she fought Sideous. She was wearing a different face, and her force connection was hidden, so to them she was just a new enemy.

Her Jedi guard was joined by several others and they walked on each corner of her forming a square around her with a Jedi in front leading them somewhere. As they went further into the temple, Arya began to focus less on the Jedi and more on her actual surroundings. The floors were made from polished stone and when she looked down, she could see her face, or rather the face she was wearing, in its reflective surface. There were large ivory-colored pillars holding up an expansive roof that was adorned with artwork depicting what she assumed to be important Jedi from their history. For an order of force wielding knights who, from what she had learned from Maul, claimed to have an unattachment to material things, they sure lived in opulence. These Jedi seemed like good people who generally wanted peace. But there was a tinge of hypocrisy to their ways that was evident the farther they traversed into the temple.

Eventually, they reached a lift at the far end of the temple and they all gathered inside. Arya noticed that the Jedi guarding her seemed relaxed, bored even. No one in the lift could feel her presence, that was for sure, because if they could, every single one would be on edge with their hand hovering over their lightsabers. As the lift climbed higher through the temple, Arya began to feel the presence of a group of individuals in a room above her. The individuals she could sense had a strong connection to the force and as the lift continued its journey upwards, the presence of these individuals almost overwhelmed her. It felt like the strength of Sideous, but with none of the darkness.

As the lift slowed to a stop, the door opened and all but one of her guards moved aside so she could exit. The Jedi in front motioned for her to follow him. The hallway they now traversed was dark and not nearly as ornate as the main temple below. They turned a corner and Arya was blinded by a sudden glare of sunlight. Once her eyes adjusted, she was able to see a large circular chamber with floor-to-ceiling windows that covered three-quarters of the chamber's walls. The floor was once again made out of polished stone and contained a large image of the Jedi symbol. Around the outside edge of the room was a row of seats circling the chamber. Each seat contained a Jedi with a strong connection to the force. Some, like Windu, she recognized from the library hours before while she was wearing another face. Others were unfamiliar to her, while some were merely holograms because they were not on the planet at that time.

Her Jedi guard said nothing, but merely pointed to the center of the chamber floor motioning her to stand there, and then headed back to the lift. Arya looked around at some of the most powerful Jedi known throughout the galaxy and prayed to all the gods she could think of that they could not sense her own connection with the force. A curious, and very small green creature who Arya recognized from Maul's training as Master Yoda was the first to speak.

"To this chamber, you were brought for questioning. Grave are the charges laid before you." Yoda said in a raspy voice. It was as if he had something caught in his throat as he spoke, and if Arya was not surrounded by her strongest enemies at the moment, she would have laughed out loud. One thing that helped her keep her composure was the fact that the strongest connection to the force she could feel in the entire room by a long shot emanated from the tiny green Jedi. Yoda was insanely powerful.

"What charges?" Arya asked, feigning innocence. Her time with the faceless assassins was going to pay off greatly here. The ability to adapt and mold herself to fit the narrative laid out in front of her was most likely what would save her and Maul and get them both out of there alive.

"Conspiring with a dark force user and attempting to steal highly sensitive Jedi artifacts." Windu said in a tone that told Arya he was not to be trifled with. Arya noticed out of all of the Jedi sitting on the Counsel, Windu was the only one that had wisps of the dark side emanating from his presence. They were faint, but they were there. The profile Maul had on Windu mentioned his use of the Vaapad lightsaber technique which was a variation of Form VII lightsaber combat. It required the user to connect with the darkness of their opponent, and then use that darkness to enhance their own fighting, eventually leveling the darkness back toward their opponent. It was only practiced by a select few Jedi because its aggressive nature brought the user too close to the dark side themselves and required a delicate balancing act between light and dark. It was extremely difficult to master without the user tipping over to the dark side and was therefore shunned by most of the Jedi. It was also extremely similar to Juyo, which was the other variation of Form VII that was practiced by Maul, and Arya herself. Arya knew that of all the Jedi on the Counsel, Windu would be the deadliest with a lightsaber if she had to fight.

"What is my sentence?" Arya asked calmly.

Windu raised an eyebrow in skepticism. "You do not deny these charges?"

"I do not. I helped to do these things you have charged me with." Arya said. Now was the tricky part. She needed to sound like a fanatic. A lowly follower that obeyed with blind loyalty but was not special in any way. "The one I serve has shown me the truth. He has shown me how the Jedi develop abilities with the force and then hoard this knowledge for themselves. He has shown me the hypocrisy of this Counsel. How they use their power to police the galaxy and create a vision of existence that fits their own morals and agendas. He has also told me how, if the Jedi's power was ever threatened, they would fight back with intense ferocity and compromise all that they stand for to hold onto their power. The one I serve has given me the gift of enlightenment. I can see clearly now."

"Then the one you serve is twisted and misguided." Windu said through gritted teeth. "He has clearly diluted your mind with poisonous thoughts towards the Jedi and used the force to do so. Only a Sith would do that."

Obi Wan Kenobi addressed Arya next. His voice was less aggressive, but his questions were closer to the point. "You associate infiltrated this facility and stole precious artifacts of ours. Before we managed to capture and subdue him, he had hidden the artifacts. Where did he hide them?"

Arya didn't even have to lie this time. She had no idea where Maul put the holocrons. "I don't know. I merely serve him on his ship. He discusses his grand designs with me, but rarely has he told me the particulars of his plans."

"Let us say that we believe you." Windu replied, "The fact remains that he killed two of our own. He will answer for his crimes, we will find out what he knows, and his mind will be wiped. Then both of you will be thrown into cells for the rest of your lives. Or, you can tell us what you know, and we will set you free. Your leader is too dangerous to be left loose, seeing as he is a force sensitive, but you yourself can't cause much harm away from him. I'm certain once you spend enough time away from his influence on your mind with the force, you will be fine."

Her charade was working so far it seemed. No one suspected her power. Good. Although, this new information about Maul killing two innocent Jedi bothered her. The feelings conflicting within Arya surged forward. They were feelings of uncertainty about being in league with someone like Maul. She knew he had no reservations about killing anyone or anything that got in his way, but she didn't want to operate that way. She had absolutely no qualms about killing. She just preferred that the people they killed were deserving of death. She wanted the knowledge from the holocrons that they were trying to acquire, but killing innocent people was not the way she wanted to go about obtaining it. Deep down she knew that something like this would happen, but now that news of the deaths of two innocent Jedi was made known to her, she couldn't help feeling like she was just as responsible as Maul even if he had been the one to actually swing the blade.

She paused a moment while she contemplated this new information, but eventually remembered that she needed to keep up her act. "I don't have anything to tell you." She said. "My leader will save me. He is extremely powerful. He probably let you catch him because he has something else planned. None of you Jedi understand what he is trying to do. You never will." Arya tried to sound as desperate and delirious as she could to make her act all the more convincing. It was somewhat comical to her that she had just laid out her exact situation, but none of the Jedi were the wiser.

"Very well. Throw her into solitary confinement and let her see if she'd rather spend her life in there, or outside as a free individual." Windu waved his hand indicating that they were done for now and to have her escorted to a prison cell.

As she was led away toward the Jedi prison cells, she started to form a plan in her head. Tonight, she would free Maul. They would gather the holocrons from wherever Maul had stashed them, and they would leave this planet. They would only return when they were strong enough to complete Maul's list. Then, onto her own list. She would eventually have to confront Maul about his killing of innocent people, she just hoped their differences in morality wouldn't force them to sever their relationship. If they did, things would get violent. She was well aware of that.


	17. Rescue Gone Awry

Arya quietly sat cross-legged on the floor in her cell. The cell was small, with walls made of polished metal. There was a wooden chair in the corner and nothing else. Either the cell was not meant to hold prisoners for very long, or the Jedi were uncharacteristically cruel to their prisoners. Arya guessed the former, which meant she would need to work fast before they came to retrieve her and find that she was missing.

A small barred window in the door of her cell was the only source of light. That was good because the dimly lit room helped Arya concentrate. She was used to little to no light, as she remembered her days spent as a blind beggar under the tutelage of the House of Black and White in Essos.

Eventually she turned her thoughts to the situation at hand. She closed her eyes and concentrated, letting the presence of the Jedi wash over her. She knew exactly where ever single Jedi in the temple was, and since there were so many, she was able to construct a mostly accurate map of the interior passages and chambers of the temple itself.

As she searched the temple in her mind, she eventually found what she was searching for. Like a small dark shadow surrounded by light, Maul's presence was revealed to her.

"Found you." She muttered, opening her eyes and standing up. She walked over to her cell door and, mustering as much power as she could, attempted to use a force power that her and Maul had only scratched the surface of during her training; mind control. She looked to coerce the Jedi guard outside of the door and get him to enter her cell. Maul had taught her that using the force to trick another's mind only worked on the weak-minded, but she hoped that her unnatural strength with the force would help her to coerce even the strong-minded. She also knew that if this part didn't work, she wouldn't have nearly the element of disguise that she wanted.

"Enter my cell." She whispered through the barred window.

The Jedi looked confused and he almost seemed like he was going to refuse, but eventually Arya could feel his mind relent and he just nodded. He turned toward the hand scanner and opening her cell door. The Jedi slipped in and Arya closed the door behind him. She knew that, while this had worked on her guard, he was probably one of the weaker-minded Jedi in the temple as there was no reason for them to think she had any power. There were certainly stronger Jedi in the temple whose minds were iron clad. The mind trick wouldn't work on everyone.

"Change clothes with me." She said. Once again, the Jedi seemed confused, but Arya had already broken into his mind. He was hers. Finally, he began undressing, and Arya did the same. As she took off her clothes, she was reminded of the fact that she was wearing a male face and that her body was still the form of a woman. The Jedi didn't seem to notice as he followed her commands in an almost trance-like state. With their clothes changed and the Jedi's lightsaber in Arya's possession, Arya pulled off her face and affixed it to the Jedi. She stepped back and saw a pretty accurate depiction of herself at least as far as the Jedi counsel would be concerned. The guard seemed to be coming back to his senses when Arya took his lightsaber and hit him on the back of the head. He slumped over, and Arya used the force to lift his body into the chair at the back of the room in the shadows.

Arya looked one last time upon the Jedi, satisfied that this decoy would work at least for a little while, and then looked up at the ceiling of her cell. She could tell from the map she had constructed in her head that there was a room above her cell with no one inside. She activated the stolen lightsaber, which happened to be blue, and jumped up towards the ceiling in a spinning motion, shoving the blade in all the way to the hilt. Her spinning motion allowed her to cut a hole in the ceiling. She landed back on the floor and the circular chunk of ceiling fell after her. Without even looking up, she caught the chunk of ceiling with the force before it hit her in the head and moved it towards the ground in front of her.

She stepped onto the piece of ceiling and used the force to lift herself up through the hole, letting the piece of ceiling, which was now the floor to her, reseal the hole she had cut. She used the lightsaber to fuse the piece back together with the rest of the floor.

When she was done, she looked around and let her eyes adjust to the room she had just entered, for it was almost darker than her cell. The room had smooth tiled floors and a bunch of seats set up like an auditorium. She walked to the back towards the doors and paused. She searched the nearby corridor with her mind to see if anyone would see her slip out of this room. No one was there and so she stepped out into the main halls. A soft blue glow lit up halls of polished stone floors and murals of Jedi propaganda. Arya walked as if she belonged. When she finally stepped out into a crowded hall, no one looked twice at her.

She kept Maul's location in her mind and worked her way there. He was locked in a cell buried deep below the Jedi temple. As she neared the prison block where Maul was kept, she noticed that the guards became more and more frequent, but she also noticed a curious thing. The power within her seemed to be surging stronger than ever. The deeper she delved into the lower levels of the Jedi temple, the more invincible she felt.

She thought about using the mind control trick on the guards in the lower levels, but if any one of them put up resistance she would be caught and the whole temple would be alerted. Since these guards were protecting a force user, the chances were much greater that they were stronger than the Jedi who had guarded her cell, so she didn't chance it. Instead, she looked for an air duct that she could climb into so as to remain unseen. Eventually, she found one and opened the vent to crawl inside. At first, it seemed like a maze, and she found she had to turn around at several dead ends, but eventually she was able to work her way to a vent just outside of Maul's cell.

There were six heavily armored Jedi knights standing just outside of the doorway. Arya's vent was conveniently directly above them, but it was also about a hundred feet high. The hallway outside of Maul's cell was enormous. Arya could only hope that the force would cushion her fall. So, she opened the vent, counted to three and then dropped. She landed on one knee facing the Jedi with her arms held down at her sides and her palms open and facing forward. The second her knee hit the ground, she ushered forth a strong force blast from each palm. The result was surprisingly effective. All six Jedi flew into the wall behind them and dropped unconscious. Arya stood up and dusted herself off, looking over her handy-work.

"Hmm, that was surprisingly effective." She muttered to herself as she took her stolen lightsaber and slashed the controls of the door to Maul's cell causing the door to spring open. She took one step inside and noticed something was wrong immediately. Maul was floating in the middle of the room which was spherical in shape. There was some sort of metal restraints around his wrists and ankles, and those restraints looked like they were suspended by electricity. He was still wearing his mask, but the reaction on his false face upon seeing her was not one of happiness or relief, but one of shock and anger.

"Foolish girl!" he yelled. "It's a trap!"

The moment he yelled, Arya felt her arms both get pulled out wide and when she looked to either side of her, she saw Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi using the force to spread her arms open. She tried resisting, but they were strong.

"There's a problem with the "rule of two" that you Sith have." Windu's voice came from behind Maul. He walked slowly into view and towards Arya with a set of metal restrains very similar to Maul's. "The problem is, that if you find one Sith, you know that there is bound to be another one close by. The first one can sneak up on you, but not the second. By then, if you're not dead, then you're on high alert."

Arya could see that the restraints on Maul kept him from using his force abilities, and her superior connection to the force was the main thing that gave her an edge over these Jedi. If they managed to get those restraints on her, she wouldn't be able to do much besides fight her way out with a lightsaber, which would most likely end with her being outnumbered and killed. Surrendering most likely meant imprisoned for the rest of her life or her memory being wiped.

The thought of losing her memories was too much for her. She thought of her family back on Westeros. Those she had lost, and those who were possibly still alive. She found that she wanted to seem them again more than anything right now. And besides, she still had scores to settle. But all of that would be impossible if Windu got those restraints on her wrists. She began to panic.

As she panicked, she tried to pull her arms back together and found that little by little she was able to. Skywalker and Obi-Wan began to slide towards her. Both redoubled their efforts with the force to stop her, but it proved unsuccessful.

"Windu! Hurry, she is strong! We can't hold her much longer!" Obi-Wan yelled through gritted teeth.

Windu stopped his speech and looked at the scene in front of him. Arya's hand was almost at her waist to grab her lightsaber, and Skywalker and Obi-Wan looked like they were about to pass out from holding her for so long.

Quickly, Windu ran up to Arya to put on the restraints, but he was a second too late. Both Skywalker and Obi-Wan fainted. Arya's hand snatched the lightsaber off her belt and sliced the restraints Windu was carrying in half so fast he could barely see it and was nearly split in half by her blade himself, only jumping out of the way at the last second.

"So that's how it's going to be." Windu said and pulled his own lightsaber out. Its purple brilliance lit up the entire spherical chamber.

Maul hung in the center, his expression one of worry and regret. He knew of Windu's prowess with a lightsaber, and he doubted Arya was ready for a challenge like this yet. Arya circled around Maul, backing away from Windu as he advanced. Windu began spinning his lightsaber incredibly fast and eventually Arya couldn't see a singular blade, but a sphere of purple light. She stopped retreating and waited for Windu to advance close enough.

She timed the hums of Windu's blade and after what seemed like an eternity, she swung her own blade and connected with his. The sabers crackled and snapped as they were pressed together. Arya took one hand off her lightsaber and shoved her hand into Windu's chest hoping to send him reeling from a force blast. Windu moved fast, even for Arya, and rebounded her force blast back at her causing her to fly across the room and hit the far wall.

She stood up and instinct told her to bring up her blade, which she did, catching Windu's downswing just in time. The flurry of blows that followed were so fast that, to Maul watching from the outside, it just looked like a purple and blue haze hanging around Arya and Windu. Maul could see that his apprentice was now more skilled than him in lightsaber combat as well. For if he had been the one to face Windu, he wasn't sure if he would last this long.

An unusual fear of being defeated began to rise in Arya as she barely blocked blow after blow. That fear very quickly turned to anger at the situation, and her inability to get herself and her master out of this god-forsaken temple. Arya channeled that anger and went on the offensive, but she found that the more she let her anger fuel her fighting, the stronger Windu seemed to become with his own fighting.

The longer Arya fought, the more she realized that she would not be able to win this fight. Her best option would be to run, but she could not leave Maul. Firstly, that would not be fair to him. He was the one who helped guide her as she unlocked her abilities and taught her to be stronger than she ever knew she could be. Secondly, she still didn't know how to fly his ship. And thirdly, only Maul knew where the holocrons he stole were. So, while Arya held back the onslaught of Windu's attacks, she formed a plan in her head to get them both out.

She began to position herself on the far side of the chamber placing Maul between herself and the door. She chose her timing carefully and when she had an opening, she jumped high up onto the wall and when her feet landed on the wall, she aimed through Maul towards the door and pushed off as had as she could.

She rocketed from the wall in a flash and put her arms around the floating figure of Maul hitting him and pulling him so hard that he was ripped from his electric floating prison and they both flew through the doorway. As soon as they were outside of the cell, Arya used the force to shove the door down and jam it, trapping Windu and the other Jedi inside. She knew it wouldn't hold them for long.

Arya's force shield managed to protect her when she hit Maul, she was mostly ok. Maul did not fare as well. Arya could tell that he definitely had several broken ribs and probably some internal bleeding. His legs were a mangled mess, and his arm was twisted at a funny angle.

"You did well. But you should have known that was a trap." Maul said with a voice racked with pain.

"A thank you would be appreciated." Arya said. "You know, you don't need to turn everything into a learning opportunity."

Maul merely grimaced. "So, does your plan go any further than this hallway?" he asked.

"I'm going to jump to the ceiling and cut a hole to get us out of here." Arya gestured upwards.

Maul looked up and saw that the hallway ceiling was roughly one hundred feet high. He looked at Arya who's steely demeanor stopped the protest on his lips. He was too hurt to be of much use, and he didn't really know where he was or how to get out of the temple.

"Wait down here." Arya said sarcastically and then jumped.

Maul watched as she twirled in the air and hit the ceiling with extreme force. She cut a hole into the ceiling and dropped back down next to him.

"This may hurt a bit." She said as she reached her arms underneath Mauls and grunted as she halfway lifted him off the ground.

"Seven hells! You're weight as much as a horse!"

At that moment, the door to Maul's cell burst open violently. Windu, Skywalker, and Obi-Wan all piled out of the spherical chamber and activated their lightsabers as soon as they saw Arya and Maul.

Arya gave them a quick wave, grabbed tightly to Maul, and jumped up through the hole she had created. She reached back through the hole and sealed it off with the circular piece she had cut from the ceiling.

"Child." Maul wheezed through his broken ribs and hemorrhaging organs. They were in what looked like an empty storage room, and Maul was propped up on some boxes.

"Yes master?" she said as she used the force to check for Jedi outside of the room they were in. There were none that she could sense at the moment.

"Leave me." He said. "If we both get caught, then there is no one left to complete our mission of vengeance. Without me, you can easily escape. Get far from here with the holocrons. Learn from them, and then come back and get me out of this Jedi prison."

"Your bleeding to death. You need a medic droid soon, or you won't be alive to save." Arya said, somewhat exasperated. Even though their views differed, and at times he had been unusually cruel in her training, he was her only ally and her only friend. He was a twisted version of a friend, she knew that, but she hadn't had the luxury of knowing any normal friends for years now. She couldn't just leave him to die.

"When the Jedi find me, they will heal me. I have information regarding the Sith and the dark side of the force and am therefore too valuable of an asset to let die. They will try and break my mind to find out what I know about their enemies, and what I know about you. Make no mistake, after the talents you have displayed, they will want you as their own. They will use you as a weapon that they can point, aim, and let loose upon their foes, with little concern for your own well-being or interests."

Arya thought about what Maul said. About the hypocrisy in his words. Maul was looking to do the same thing with her. Use her as his weapon to defeat his enemies. The funny thing about it was that Maul had the same enemies as the Jedi did, he just saw the Jedi as enemies as well. But she wasn't about to bring all that up to Maul at this crucial moment. She was running out of time, and if Maul would not willingly go with her, she wouldn't be able to drag him along. She thought of one other thing as well.

"I don't know how to fly your ship." She said.

"Before we left for this mission, I gave total voice access to you for my ship's command system. It can fly itself, you just need to tell it where to go or what to do. There are droids on my ship that can help you as well. The holocrons are in a pack in the second alley to the north of the temple. You can figure the rest out. Now go."

"But I –" Arya began to protest.

"Go!" Maul yelled and then coughed, splattering the font of his robes with blood.

"They're in here!" someone from outside the door yelled. Arya felt outside the room again and found that the once empty hallway was now crowded with Jedi.

"I will come back for you." She said, looking at the broken Dothmirian one more time and then turning her attention to the doorway.

She was angry. Angry she couldn't save her mentor. Syrio Forel and the Hound flashed in her mind quickly. She cleared her thoughts and focused her anger. She didn't want to kill any of these Jedi, but she sure as hell wasn't going to be held prisoner by them.

She grabbed the door with the force and ripped it out of its sliding track. With a grunt and a scream, she pushed the door through the frame and saw Jedi go flying in every direction. Some of them losing their lightsabers as they were hit. Arya used the force to bring one of those lightsabers to her and activated it along with the one already she had. The Jedi who could be seen outside of the doorway all activated their lightsabers as well.

Arya didn't care who was outside of the doorway. She wouldn't let anyone stop her from escaping. She was done hiding and sneaking around. She gave Maul one last look and burst out into the large chamber beyond.

There were about two dozen Jedi, and about half were within striking distance. She watched as they all swung simultaneously. She blocked and dodged each one perfectly and, using the map in her head, began running towards the staircase leading to the upper levels of the temple and the exits.

The Jedi tailed her closely, but she was too fast for them. Every blade stroke missed. Every attempt to force throw an object at her was either dodged or rebounded. As she reached the large entrance chamber, she had about three dozen Jedi behind her, and dozens more blocking all the exits. Interspersed within the crowd were some of the powerful Jedi council members.

She pulled up and weighed the situation as the mass of Jedi began to surround her. She sent a force blast towards one of the exits scattering some Jedi, but others filled in their place while they regrouped. She turned around quickly and when she did, she found herself not in the Jedi temple, but in the courtyard near the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor.

She looked around confused. No one was there except for four people. Her father, who was on his knees with his head drooped down at the top of the steps. Ilyn Payne, who was standing near her father with Ice, the Stark family sword. Joffrey, who was smiling sadistically. And finally, she saw herself as a small child sitting on a statue of the Great Lord Baelor watching the scene unfold.

"Girl." Mauls voice came from behind her, startling her for a moment. She turned to face the voice.

Maul was standing there; his real face was visible, and he was wearing his normal black robes.

"What is happening?" Arya asked. "None of this is real."

"No." Maul's raspy voice said bluntly. "But I noticed something when I was training you. You always showed your true powers when you were reminded of your personal traumas. So, this is my way of helping you escape. I am projecting this vision into your mind and in the real world it will take almost no time at all. When we trained, I combed your mind for all of your most painful memories in an attempt to use them at certain times to help unlock your abilities. This memory was the most painful for you. I don't know what it will get you to do, but use this vision to help fuel your anger, and use that fuel to power your abilities. Now, turn and watch."

The figure of Maul dissolved into mist and Arya turned to face what was happening in this vision.

"Ser Ilyn! Bring me his head!" Joffrey's smug and arrogant voice bellowed, echoing through the eerily quiet courtyard.

Arya's heart started racing. She knew that her father's death had already happened, but this was so real, it was like he was being killed all over again. She couldn't just let it happen, even in her head. The small girl sitting on the stature was a lifetime ago, and mostly helpless, but the women she was now could destroy her enemies without so much as a thought.

She went to stop Ilyn Payne but found she couldn't move. In this cruel vision, no matter how hard she tried, she could not move her feet to run up and save her father. She tried to close her eyes but found she couldn't do that either. Maul had really pulled out all the stops for this vision.

Tears began to run down her face as Ilyn raised Ice above her father's head for the killing blow. Arya reminded herself why Maul had projected this vision into her head in the first place and moved her eyes to focus on Joffrey. As the sword fell, Joffrey's mouth curled up at the corners into a sadistic smile and his eyes widened with satisfaction. The look of pleasure on his face at the death of her father was almost enough to drive Arya mad.

Suddenly, she was back in Jedi temple and the Jedi surrounding her were exactly where they were when she had first entered her vision, but none of them were advancing on her anymore. In fact, most of them looked worried. Some even looked afraid.

Arya looked down and realized she was glowing with a blue light, much like she had when her body had formed a force shield around her when she had fought Sideous. But this time, the light was getting brighter and brighter. Her hearing finally came back to her and she realized that she was screaming in pain. The brighter she got, the more she felt like she was going to burst at the seams with force power. It was as if the force was pooling up inside of her at a rapid rate, but there was nowhere for it to go. No outlet to release any of it. It hurt, badly.

As her body was racked with pain, she thought about how badly she just wanted to be out of this damn temple. She thought about how she wanted to be back on the ship with the holocrons so that she could get away from this place and learn to control these extremely strong powers instead of having to rely on her painful memories to be the catalyst for unlocking and controlling them. She hated this planet. The buildings as tall as mountains. The light, the noise. Just the sheer number of different beings. It was all too much.

Suddenly, directly in front of her, a strange thing began happening. A small circle began forming in midair. The circle was dark and began to expand. She noticed that the bigger the circle got, the more her pain subsided. She saw as lines of force energy left her body and went directly into the circle. It was as if her force powers were feeding this strange circle. Eventually, the circle got big enough, and Arya realized that it was an image of Maul's ship in the courtyard where they had left it. She could also see the bodies of the courtyard guards still laying at the foot of her ship's ramp where the Jedi had struck them down. What struck her most was that the image looked so real, it was almost as if she could walk through the circle and she would be back at the ship.

Most of the Jedi around her looked confused and bewildered, but some of the more advanced and higher-ranking ones began to run toward her. She shifted her gaze from the circular image to the Jedi advancing on her and back to the image again. And then it hit her. This was a portal. She jumped through just moments before the Jedi reached her position and when she looked back, all she saw was the dark courtyard. She turned around and saw Maul's ship directly in front of her. She had escaped.


	18. An Unlikely Turn of Events

Arya walked up to Maul's ship and found two Jedi guarding it. As soon as they spotted her, they activated their lightsabers and barred her way.

"I would move if I were you." Arya said in a monotone voice.

The two Jedi looked at each other and then back at Arya and began to advance. Arya rolled her eyes and sighed. With a small hand gesture, she pulled the lightsabers from their hands and crushed them in front of the Jedi's surprised faces.

"I did not escape your temple and seemingly every Jedi in the galaxy just to be stopped by you two." She said as she raised her hands palms-forward and pushed sending the two Jedi flying to the other side of the courtyard with a force blast.

She boarded Mauls ship and for the first time, she spoke to it.

"Ship, can you understand me?" she inquired, wondering if what Maul had told her was true and that the ship would obey her commands.

"Yes." The ship replied. Arya flinched for a second. She had not expected the ship to respond to her.

"Good." She said, recomposing herself. "Fly three blocks south of the Jedi temple, but keep a low profile."

"Understood." The ship said. To Arya's delight, the ship's ramp retracted, and the ship took off in the direction she had indicated.

In a matter of minutes, the Jedi temple flew into view. Even in the nighttime glow of the city's lights the temple looked impressive. Everything around the temple looked peaceful and serene, or at least as serene as this overpopulated and chaotic city could look to Arya. The important part was that no one looking at the temple would know what went on behind its walls tonight. The ship landed in an alley three blocks south, just as Arya had indicated.

Arya walked out and joined the never-ending throng of sleepless Coruscant citizens in the main street. When she reached the second alley, she ducked in and was greeted with an unpleasant smell that reminded her of some of the streets in King's Landing. As she walked past dirt and refuse, she began to realize that city conditions didn't change much even with thousands of years of advancement in technology.

Arya made her way halfway down the alley when she stopped at a small pile of garbage that looked as if it had recently been sifted through. Ignoring the smell, she reached inside the pile and eventually her hands felt a pack filled with hard objects. She pulled the pack out and opened it up. Her jaw dropped.

Maul had shown her holographic projections of holocrons, and even half of a broken one that he possessed, but the beauty of the blood red and soft blue lights that danced in the pack mesmerized her. Maul had told her that these holocrons belonged to some of the most powerful and ancient beings in the galaxy. It was like looking at a patchwork of knowledge that spanned thousands of years and was gathered across billions of miles, and all of it was contained in a single pack.

Arya kept her gaze on the lights of the holocrons a moment longer and then shut the pack and shouldered it.

She walked back to the ship without incident and settled onto a bench in the common area.

"Ship. Plot a course to Dathomir." She said.

"Understood." The ship replied.

Arya heard the light hum of the engines starting up and felt for only a brief moment the slight vertigo of the ship rising through the atmosphere of Coruscant and leaving the city world behind.

FIN

Maul awoke to the smell of antiseptic and the sound of medical instruments. He went to sit up but found that doing so produced an extreme burst of pain throughout his abdomen, so he merely turned his head from side to side. He saw he was in the medical wing of what was probably still the Jedi Temple, and as he lay on his bed, the memories of the last day flooded back to him.

Arya foolishly trying, and failing, to rescue him from one of the most secure places in the galaxy. His final plea for her to leave him and continue their mission after she promised to come back for him. His nearly fatal wounds. His…face.

Maul reached up with his arms, which were also bruised, and felt his face. The false face Arya had given him was gone, which meant that they now knew who he was. Feeling foolish, he realized that the face wouldn't have mattered if they had done extensive surgery on him to fix his wounds because his body, at least the non-mechanical part of his body, was covered in the same black and red tattoos that covered his face.

So, they knew he was Maul. That didn't matter much. The Jedi council already knew that he wasn't dead from their clashes with his various crime syndicates. The question was, what would the Jedi do now that they knew who they possessed?

Maul felt for his legs and realized that they had been removed from his body. They were probably too damaged to save, and him being legless was probably safer for the Jedi around him. For the first time since he had been cut in half and fallen down the reactor shaft on Naboo did Maul feel truly alone.

It was at that moment that the door to the medical bay hissed open and the most unexpected thing happened. Darth Sidious, in his guise as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, walked into the room and straight to the foot of his bed. A group of advisors tailed him into the medical wing and eventually Maul had a small crowd staring down at him.

"This is the man who has caused the Republic and the Jedi so much distress?" Palpatine spoke to someone behind Maul. Maul turned his head to glance up and was surprised he had not noticed the two Jedi guards standing at the head of his bed.

"Yes, your excellency." One of the Jedi answered. "This is the prisoner responsible. He has an accomplice, but she managed to escape. We are on the hunt for her as we speak." There was a small bit of anger in the Jedi's voice, but Maul knew what it really was. Fear. The Jedi had thought the Sith extinct, and then he had shown up on Naboo, and they had found that the Sith were still very much alive. Now, an even more powerful force user, wielding a red blade, had helped him infiltrate their very temple and made off with a wealth of Jedi and Sith knowledge. The Jedi had not been ready for this.

"If I may be so bold, your excellency. Why are you here? We received no communication that you would be visiting the prisoner today." One of the Jedi asked.

"Leave us." Palpatine said to his advisors. They all nodded obediently and left.

Palpatine sighed, and then spoke.

"I'm here because I need this prisoner. He has information valuable to me." Palpatine looked at the Jedi, causing them to shift uncomfortably.

"We do not have the authority to allow you to speak to the prisoner without our superior's knowledge and approval. And besides, the Jedi council will be questioning the prisoner. When he supplies the answers they seek, they will relay the information to you and your council members." The first Jedi said.

"Oh, but you misunderstand me." Palpatine's voice began to crack slightly. "I probably won't be asking the same questions as your superiors."

Maul lay there uncomfortably and knew what was coming next. He knew that if he didn't warn these Jedi, they would be killed, here and now. But if he did warn them then, well, they would still die, but he would have aided in trying to protect a Jedi. He wasn't sure what to do, so all he did was mutter a single sentence.

"What brings the Dark Lord of the Sith to my bedside?"

The two Jedi looked at Maul, and then at Palpatine, and then at each other. They reached down for their lightsabers, but it was much too late. In once graceful bound, Sidious leapt over Maul's bed and swept the heads of the two Jedi guards off their shoulders with his own red lightsaber. The red blade retracted almost as fast as it had been drawn, only being activated for the split second that it was needed to decapitate the guards. Maul lay helplessly in his bed and stared at Sidious with a hatred that could melt steel.

"Ah, much better." Sidious said as he used the force to push the head and body of one of the guards away and bring a chair over for him to sit on. He sat a few feet away from Maul's bed and sighed. "Now, where to begin. Ah, yes. The girl." He looked at Maul with a hunger in his eyes. Eyes which several moments ago had been lifeless and dull and were now lit up in fractured shades of red and yellow, much like Maul's.

"What does she have to do with your plans?" Maul sneered. "You have no need for an apprentice, and she has no interest in our politics. Leave her be."

"Do my ears deceive me, or is that affection in your voice?" Sidious chuckled slightly. "No, it couldn't be. How could a Dathomirian beast such as yourself have any other emotions besides anger and hate."

Maul felt his chest tighten as the anger he felt towards Sidious erupted in his mind.

"You were a good apprentice…for a time. But you let yourself be nearly destroyed. And now you are consumed by revenge. You are weak. And after seeing your apprentice, I see now that even my own apprentice is weak. I'm afraid to admit that even I am not as powerful as her. She nearly killed me when we dueled."

Maul started for a moment. "She fought you?" he said, incredulous.

"She did. And did a fine job of it too. Although, I will say, had the force not shielded her body from my lightning, I would have killed her easily. It was almost as if the force has more control over her, than she of it. Anyways, I have been sowing seeds to make one of the most promising Jedi my new apprentice, but I can see that with her at my side, nothing will stand in the way of my grand designs."

Maul snorted. "She will never be your apprentice."

"No, I'm afraid you're right. Sidious sighed. "I offered her the chance to train under me, and she refused. But if I had some way to control her, then I could use her as a weapon."

Maul actually chuckled at that and then winced in pain. Sidious looked at him annoyed.

"Get in line." Maul said. "Don't you see that that is exactly what I was training her for? To be used as my weapon. Only I was sending her to kill you, amongst others. And if the Jedi had managed to capture her, they would have brain washed her and used her as their own weapon as well. But she knows what she is, and even if she is relatively new to force manipulation, she has enough control over her powers to be a threat to just about anyone that crosses her path. I don't think she will be anyone's apprentice anymore. And definitely not their lackey."

"Oh, I wouldn't try and control her by conventional means." Sidious said.

"What do you mean?" Maul asked, slightly apprehensive.

"I know for a fact that you would never have trained the girl, never let her get stronger than you, unless you knew for a fact that you ultimately had some way to control or destroy her if she ever stepped out of line. That is the Sith way, and I have engrained the Sith way in you long ago boy. Almost every Sith who has given too much power to their apprentice has ended up with that apprentice's lightsaber up to the hilt in their chest. So, tell me, what is it that can kill someone who the force itself creates a shield to protect?"

Maul immediately thought of the conversation he had with Mother Talzin during his first night with Arya on Dathomir. The dagger of Mortis. He looked up at Sidious and could already see that his face had betrayed his thoughts.

"Ah, so there is a way to control her." The hungry look in Sidious's eyes deepened.

"It doesn't matter. I'll never tell you what it is." Maul stared determinedly into the face of his former master and greatest enemy.

"Oh no. You'll tell me. It just depends on how much pain you wish to endure before you do." Sidious's face broke into a wicked grin.

"And you expect to break into my mind in the few moments we have left alone in this room before the Jedi realize something is wrong? You spent decades hiding right under their noses, and now you've exposed yourself to the Jedi's recording devices and will be trapped in here with me. The girl couldn't even get me out of here with all the strength she possesses." Maul held his former master's evil gaze and watched it turn to annoyance.

"The girl may possess raw power the likes of which have rarely been seen, but I have been a Sith Lord for longer than she has been alive many times over. My spies are everywhere. I have agents who know how to manipulate recording devices or even how to distract important Jedi. How do you think I got this far into the temple without members from the Jedi council realizing I was here? I am the most cunning being in the galaxy, and if you think I would walk in here without a plan to get myself out again, then you are a fool." Sidious looked with anger at his former apprentice as if Maul's doubt in his abilities were an insult. "And don't worry." Sidious continued. "You'll be coming with me. Obviously, the girl is fond of you, or she never would have tried to break in here and save you. You shall be my bait." Sidious's face drove Maul mad at how satisfied it looked.

"I can't wait when the girl gets ahold of you and rips you limb from limb." Maul growled.

"Now, now. None of that. Don't give me ideas on what to have the girl do to you once I have control of her." Sidious said. "Now, let's get you out of this temple and to a more suitable location for questioning." Sidious smiled his evil smile once more.

FIN

Arya laid back in the pilot's chair on Maul's ship. It was surprisingly comfy, and she found herself nodding off as the ship made its way to Dathomir. She wanted to start learning from the holocrons as soon as possible, but she needed to rest at least a little bit. The last day had been exhausting.

So, she threw her feet up on the control panel and leaned back, nodding off for a couple of hours as the soft blue glow of hyperspace washed over her. Eventually, the ship dropped out of hyperspace in orbit around Dathomir and the change from soft blue light to blood red light woke Arya from her restless sleep.

"Land at the training cave." Arya commanded the ship. Its response was immediate.

"Understood." The metallic female voice of the ship said.

As the ship traversed through the atmosphere and headed in the direction of the training cave, Arya walked over to a table in the common area and upended the pack full of holocrons onto the table's surface. Once again, she was awash in a mix of blue and red light. She arranged the holocrons into rows on the table running her hands over each one. These relics of knowledge so beautiful that they looked like pieces of art. She had no idea how they were made, or how they stored information, but Maul had told her that you needed to use the force to unlock them.

As Arya put the final holocron on the table, she noticed that it was only a broken half and not lit up like the others. She was intrigued to find that the holocron half looked familiar to her, but she wasn't sure why. Then it hit her. Maul had a holocron half that looked exactly like the half she now held in her hand and he kept it in the training room on this ship. He had mentioned to her in passing but had never really told her what it was.

She went to the training room and found that it was still there. She ran back to the table and held it next to the other half that Maul had gathered from the Jedi temple. They were clearly two halves of the same holocron. As she brought the two halves of the holocrons together she felt them begin to pull towards each other. In a flash they snapped together and the holocron lit up in a brilliant red glow to match the others.

Arya felt a slight bump as the ship touched down outside the forest that surrounded the training cave. She wanted to get off the ship and into the cave, but she decided to try and open this holocron first, just to see what she was dealing with.

She used the force and felt along the body of the holocron that had recently been two halves but now resembled a small, four-sided golden pyramid. She felt every curve and edge to it. Her mind delved deeper inside the device and that was when she felt it, some sort of resistance inside the device that she was certain only a for user could detect. So, she pushed against the resistance and heard an audible click from within the holocron. The top point of the pyramid opened up and a holographic projection of a very evil, and somewhat human looking creature draped in a black robe appeared above the holocron.

A raspy, sinister voice echoed not from the holocron, but in Arya's head. "Tier one of the holocron of Darth Plagueis the Wise has been activated. Advanced weaponry and armor creation available. Remain on tier one or advance to tier two?" as it said this, it opened its arms and an array of strange weaponry appeared above the hologram's head.

The hologram of who Arya now knew to be Darth Plagueis remained in an expectant pose. Advanced weaponry and armor could only help her so much. She knew that her real weapon was her force manipulation. She could come back to weapons and armor at a later time.

"Advance to tier two." Arya commanded.

The hologram of Plagueis dropped his hands to his sides and the depictions of strange weapons disappeared above his head. Plagueis raised his hands again and this time Arya had no idea what to think as images of strange looking creatures and structures formed above his head.

"Tier two activated. Genetic modification, sentient creature modification, and midichloric manipulation available. Remain on tier two or advance to tier three?" the hologram once again remained in an expectant pose.

Arya wasn't sure what any of that meant, so she sighed and said, "Advance to tier three."

Once again, the hologram put down it's hands down, but instead of raising its hands back up and displaying another array of images, it turned it's head so that it was looking directly at Arya. This unnerved her slightly and she backed away a step.

"Do you really wish to unlock the third tier in this holocron?" it said. Arya felt slightly uncomfortable as this phase of the hologram seemed more sentient than the first two tiers.

"Yes." She said lightly.

"Tier three of this holocron contains information regarding one of the biggest secrets of the Sith. Failure to complete the following phrase will lock all information in this holocron for the next one thousand years. Do you still wish to continue?

Arya wasn't sure, but she had come this far, and she was tired of waiting.

"Yes." She answered.

"Very well." The hologram of Plagueis paused for a moment, and then spoke. "Valar Morghulis."

Arya took a couple of steps back and sat on the bench at the far wall of the common area. How could that be? How could the holocron of this Sith Lord contain words of High Valyrian, a language from her own planet? She knew what phrase to answer with, but now she wasn't so sure she wanted to know the secret that tier three contained. She thought about the situation for a second, and then stood back up walked over to the hologram.

"Valar Dohaeris", she whispered.

"Tier three activated." Plagueis said. All at once the hologram of Plagueis disappeared and the top of the holocron closed.

Arya stood there confused with her heart hammering in her chest. Was that it? Nothing happened, until suddenly each side of the holocron opened up and flooded the entire chamber with a red holographic projection of the galaxy. A blinking yellow dot showed Dathomir's place in the galaxy. Another blinking yellow dot was placed far outside the galaxy in a place Maul had told her was known as Wild Space. A yellow line connected the two blinking dots.

Arya watched as the hologram began to enlarge the galaxy and followed the yellow line from Dathomir sending holographic projections of stars and planets whizzing past her. Eventually the map expanded so far that only the blinking yellow dot in Wild Space was visible. It was as if she had just swum through the whole of the galaxy and was zeroing in directly toward whatever secret that dot held.

She continued to watch as the dot grew larger and larger. Eventually, she realized that it wasn't merely a dot, but a planet. As the planet grew larger, Arya watched as land masses came into focus on the planet's surface and continued to grow larger. She had an idea of what she would see, and as her heart slammed in her chest, she saw that her suspicions were confirmed. Hovering before her in an ominous red glow was a map of Westeros and Essos. Darth Plagueis had been on her planet before.

Arya stood dumbfounded. What could this new development could possibly mean? A Sith Lord had been on her planet before. A planet which apparently housed an extremely important Sith secret. As Arya processed this new information the holographic map continued to expand so that she was brought out east, past the Narrow Sea. The map continued over the coastal cities, over slavers bay, and eventually ended just north-east of the rumored city of Asshai. The Shadow Lands. A place only spoken about in Westeros in stories used to frighten little children.

Arya sat there for a moment, absolutely stunned at this current turn of events. After a short while, she composed herself and set the ship in the direction of the holocron's coordinates.

She was going home.

END OF PART TWO


	19. Interlude - A New Player

Interlude Part One

Darth Tyrannus sat in his comfortable highbacked leather chair. A glass of wine sat untouched at the edge of his desk – a desk that was actually made of real wood. The desk would have cost a fortune on the city world of Coruscant, but on his home world of Serenno, wood was quite abundant. Lush forests covered most of the planet itself, and Tyrannus much preferred the green vegetation to the stale city air and light pollution of galaxy's capital planet. Truth be told, the desk was still a fortune. Tyrannus had commissioned the most skilled woodcraftsman to create it for him, and it was a thing of beauty.

The wine was expensive too – a rare vintage that he needed to go off-world to obtain, and it would have been the highlight of his evening if he had not just gotten news of his next assignment. The last holographic lines of his master's face faded from the projector on his desk as he looked out the cliff-side window of his study onto the world far below. An incredibly powerful force adept girl was being tracked by his master, and it was now his job to bring her to him. He was also being brought a tool, sent from his master. A tool that would aid in his capture of the girl. This so-call "tool" would arrive tomorrow morning. Curiosity flared in his mind.

The Sith's plans were about to come to fruition and Sideous was sending him on an errand to fetch some force sensitive girl, instead of being where he was needed. Either this girl was more important than she seemed, or Sideous had some other plot going that he didn't know about. Both were possible. Both were dangerous. Sideous was a master strategist, and while Tyrannus was pretty sure he was a major player in the plans to come, you could never be quite certain with someone as skilled in deception as his master was. He would need to plan his next steps carefully. He sighed. The only thing he did know for certain at the moment was that he had no choice in the matter. His master had ordered him to capture this girl, so that is what he would do. Tyrannus pressed a button inlaid into the cool wood of the desk and the hologram of a droid projected from the desktop.

"Your excellency?" the droid inquired.

"Prepare my ship. We will depart tomorrow morning." Tyrannus ordered. His deep baritone voice echoed though the large chamber of his study.

"Yes, your excellency." The droid's metallic voice replied.

Droids. The brainless cannon fodder of the separatist movement. Sure, most of them had processors meant to draw quick calculations and react appropriately in most situations, but an actual sentient brain could look past the raw data and be subjective when the situation called for it. You couldn't beat a droid's loyalty though. The only way to change that was to reprogram it, which admittedly was still a drawback, but one that didn't happen too often. How many battles had he won with metal and hydraulic fluid instead of loyal flesh and blood? Hmm. Food for thought.

Tyrannus picked up the glass of forgotten wine and sipped at it slowly. The warmth it brought traveled down his chest and through his gut, extending to his limbs. The rare vintage from Alderaan began working on his mind, and eventually his mood began to lighten where dark thoughts had been forming. He sat for a while in silence, eventually finishing the last dregs in his glass and retiring to his master suite to get some rest before his master's delivery arrived in the morning.

-FIN-

Tyrannus woke on his own accord and immediately got out of his large four-poster bed. He stretched, taking into account the growing number of aches and pains that came with advanced age. The countless battles, sparring sessions and duels had not helped his body age any slower. But that was neither here nor there. Tyrannus knew that his mind was sharp, and medical advancements would allow him to remain far longer than the universe had originally intended. He walked over to the wardrobe in his suite and dressed himself in a light shirt as well as loose slacks that he tucked into high polished leather boots. A sash around his waist and a robe completed his ensemble and he made his way to the landing pad in front of the castle. As he passed ornamental gardens and obelisks, he watched a small ship enter the atmosphere and make its way towards his location.

His robes billowed out behind him as the exhaust plume of the ship sent gusts of wind his way, but Tyrannus didn't flinch or hold up his hand to block the dust and debris. A ramp extended from the belly of the small ship and a floating cage hovered down the ramp flanked by two large battle droids.

As the cage neared him, Tyrannus couldn't help but chuckle to himself. Darth Maul, one of his old enemies, drugged to the gills and missing his cybernetic legs was laying in the middle of the cage. The cage stopped directly in front of Tyrannus and one of the battle droids approached holding out a holographic projector in its metallic hand. _You've seen better days you old fool_ he thought.

"A message from Lord Sideous, your excellency." The droid squawked at him.

Tyrannus took it out of its hand and dismissed them both with a wave of his hand. He flipped the device over and pressed the button in the center of it. His master's face projected above the devise and floated over his palm. After a pause of several seconds, it began to speak.

"Tyrannus, listen carefully to my next instructions. The girl you seek is extremely powerful and it will take all of your resources to obtain her. If bent to our will, she will be a powerful ally. As you can see, my former apprentice has seen better days, but he will be of vital use to you. He is the one who trained the girl in the dark side of the force, and something leads me to believe that she cares for him. Use him as leverage to get her to cooperate if needed. In your ship's navigation system, I have sent you a signal that is being used to track the ship she is traveling on at this exact moment. Follow the tracking beacon, find the girl, and bring her to me…ALIVE."

Sideous's holographic face faded away and Tyrannus sneered at this new turn of events. Bringing this girl into their ranks sounded a lot like breaking the Rule of Two. He thought of past events and how his master had forced him to get rid of or betray those he attempted to train himself. The hypocrisy was clearly evident, and anger flooded him as he looked down at Maul in his cage. Maul was what happened to Sideous's apprentices when there was no further use for them, and to Tyrannus he was the living embodiment of his own future if Sideous decided to turn on him. Tyrannus shook his head clear and motioned for one of his own droids to come forward.

"Put this filth in the ship's holding cell and prepare to leave."

"Yes, your excellency." The droid saluted and pushed Maul's floating cage towards Tyrannus's ship's loading ramp.

Tyrannus himself boarded the ship and once everything was secure and ready, gave the order to leave the atmosphere of Serenno and make the jump to hyperspace. Thoughts of betrayal and paranoia hung heavy in his mind as his ship locked onto the source of the tracking beacon that would lead him to this force-sensitive girl his master was so interested in. Suddenly, the tracking beacon showed that the girl's ship had left hyperspace and was headed towards a nearby planet. The planet was roughly a day's travel away from his own position.

 _She must have noticed she was being tracked and doesn't want me to know where she's heading_ Tyrannus thought. That was fine. He wouldn't have to chase her all over the galaxy now. He had his droids readjust his own ship's heading and laid back in his opulent pilot's chair. As he dosed off, he wondered what surprises this mission had in store for him.


	20. Interlude - A New Planet

Interlude - Part 2

Tyrannus awoke an hour later to the sound of an incoming message pinging his ship. He sighed, sat up straight, and played the incoming message on his ship's extensive control board. A holographic image of General Grievous appeared and began to speak.

"Lord Tyrannus" Grievous said in a muffled metallic voice. His holographic image swept into a low bow and then broke into a fit of coughing. Once the fit was over, he continued. "Our master has instructed me to help you in your newest assignment. I have locked onto your ship and will be half a day's time behind you." One more bow and another fit of coughing ended the transmission.

Tyrannus rubbed his temples and sighed. Apparently, this girl was more important than he originally thought if Sideous was willing to devote another of his largest resources in an effort to obtain her. He would need to plan his capture of the girl carefully. Maybe he would send a few waves of droids first just to test her and see what she was capable of. He would discuss his plan with Grievous, but he had a feeling that the general would agree with that strategy.

Tyrannus stood up and left the control room, content on leaving his droids to their duties on the ship. His talents were better suited for managing the political landscape that he and Sideous would one day rule. He made his way to his ship's study, a room that was nearly as ornate as his study back on Serenno, and poured over trade agreements, blockade strategies, and treaties for hours on end until his eyes could no longer focus. Then he pulled himself into his desk-side bed and slept, hoping that they would be at their destination by the time he woke up.

FIN

Tyrannus woke to a beeping sound in his study that signified they were about to exit hyperspace. He got up, cleaned himself up and headed for the control room. Various droids passed him on the way, going about their business keeping his ship in pristine condition. As he walked into the control room, he saw the blue tunnel of hyperspace through the front window.

"How long until we leave hyperspace?" he asked his pilot droid.

"Approximately five minutes." It replied.

"Good. As soon as we reach the planet, put us into orbit and start scanning the surface. I want to find this girl quickly." He sat in the chair in the middle of the room and began to feel a slight bit of apprehension about what they would find when they left hyperspace. They were in the Wilds of the Galaxy, and this planet was undocumented, so it could be anything. In fact, Tyrannus wasn't sure if he had ever been this far off the beaten path before. The thought was an unsettling one. Paranoia crept back into his thoughts. Was Sideous luring him out here to get rid of him? He pondered this for a moment and came to a conclusion. No, he was too instrumental in Sideous' future plans to be disposed of like this. Besides, there were much easier ways to get rid of someone. He grimaced at the thought. He ran his hands though the tangle of snow-white hair that covered his head and watched out the window as the ship finally left hyperspace. The unknown planet loomed before him.

The planet, which was roughly the size of Coruscant, was covered in dense forests and littered with lakes. It reminded Tyrannus a little bit of Serenno, the similarities slightly easing his tension. The problem was, with all the dense vegetation, there would be ample places to hide. Why could the planet not be a desert planet like Tatooine? He thought. This assignment was probably going to take longer than expected.

"Orbital path engaged and scanners up and running." The droid working the control panel announced as the planet swept away below them.

Tyrannus watched as a large mountain range came into view on the surface. Jutting up between the dense swaths of forest, the mountain ridge looked like the spine of some colossal beast protruding from the planet. After a few minutes, it passed out of sight. Besides that, the entire planet was one big forest.

"Where does the tracking beacon tell us the girl's ship is located at the moment?" Tyrannus asked.

"At the base of the mountain range that passed moments ago." The droid replied.

"Very well. Keep scanning the planet and let me know of any anomalies you find. I will return once General Grievous has joined us." With that, Tyrannus left the control room and headed back to his study.

Several hours later the intercom on Tyrnnus's desk sprang to life.

"Sir, General Grievous's ship has just left hyperspace and matched orbit with our ship." The control droid informed him.

"Very well." He said before shutting the intercom off. "Let the hunting begin."

FIN

As Tyrannus stared across the table in the central chamber of his ship, had had the same thought that he always had every time he saw the cyborg general. Grievous was tall. Not that it really counted. His body could be remade to any specification that he requested. But the metallic body with the cape made an intimidating figure to say the least. Tyrannus remembered that Grevious's Kaleesh body had been tall to begin with, but the robotic replacement seemed even taller. His enhancements had made him a fine weapon in the separatist movement.

"As I was saying." Grievous continued after what had been an extended fit of coughing. "I believe your plan is a good one. I will send a battalion of my finest droids to scour the area where the tracking beacon says her ship is. If she is not there, we will send torpedoes to destroy her ship leaving her trapped on this planet. Then, if our droids cannot retrieve her, we go on the surface ourselves and take her."

Tyrannus nodded, "Then send your battalion and give me any updates they may have. Feel free to remain on my ship if you want until we find the girl."

"Thank you Count, but I will retire to my ship. If we do need to go to the surface to obtain this girl, and if she is as dangerous as Sideous says, then I will want to calibrate my robotic parts to be in top operational shape." With a bow and a swish of his cape, Grievous left the chamber.

Tyrannus went back to his study.

About two hours had passed when Tyrannus was hailed by Grievous himself. "Well, did you find anything?" Tyrannus asked the holographic figure of Grievous floating over his desk.

"We did not. Shall we fire torpedoes at the location?"

"Yes. Report back when it is done."

"Yes sir." The holograph of Grievous faded from view.

Tyrannus decided to walk to the control room so he could view the torpedo strike himself. He settled into the main chair and watched through the window in the control room as two bright small dots Tyrannus knew to be the exhaust plumes of torpedoes left Grievous's ship extremely fast and headed in the direction of the mountain's base. He expected to see a small tremor on the surface from the girl's ship's location, but that didn't happen. Instead, the torpedoes detonated miles away from the intended target.

As if on cue, a holograph of Grievous appeared above the control panel.

"Sir, I don't know what happened. Those torpedoes completely lost control at the last second and missed their mark by several miles!" he said, breaking into a fit of coughing once again.

"I think I know what happened." Tyrannus said, more to himself than to Grievous.

The girl had used the force to change the trajectory of those torpedoes. That was the only explanation for what had just happened. A shiver ran down Tyrannus's spine. To move an object that large and moving that fast required a skill and mastery of the force that Tyrannus had only seen in a select few individuals.

This new turn of events only meant one thing. A droid invasion would be incredibly ineffective against their target. They could send all the droids they had and would only receive scrap metal in return. Why would their master send them here to retrieve this girl if he knew just how powerful she really was? This seemed like something he would personally see to himself. Nevertheless, they needed to bring this girl in, or return to their master in failure.

"General." Tyrannus's deep voice took on an ominous tone. "I don't believe sending droids will work. We will need to go to the surface ourselves. Prepare yourself and meet me on my ship in an hour's time."

"Yes sir."

Tyrannus ended the communication.


	21. The Cave

Part 3

Arya knelt on one knee in a small grove about a mile or so from where she had landed Maul's ship. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her entire body felt drained. Several hours ago, the area around the ship had been crawling with droids, and then suddenly they had all had packed up and left. The next thing she knew, two missiles were headed for the ship, ready to destroy her only way off the new planet she was now on. Shelter, weapons, food, and a wealth of information were all things that the ship provided her. But of all the benefits it contained, the ability to leave the planet was the most important. When Arya had noticed the missiles, she had attempted to use the force to stop them mid-air, but they were so strong that she had only managed to change their trajectories. Still, that had done enough to keep Maul's ship intact.

As she struggled to get to her feet from the sheer exhaustion of exerting so much force energy at once, she prayed to the Old Gods and the New that there were no follow-up missile attacks. Scanning the distance, she tried to remember what she had been doing at the moment she had noticed the missile strike.

About a day and a half ago, Arya had been on her way to Westeros and was examining the holocrons that she had at her disposal when the pilot droids had made her aware of an odd piece of code that had been embedded in the ship's system which would allow someone to track the ship's location. The droids were working on deleting the piece of code but were having a tough time so they advised Arya that if she didn't want to lead her pursuers to her final destination, that she should make a detour at any nearby habitable planet and wait until they could delete the tracking code. Apparently, the planet she was now on was the closest.

When she landed on the planet, she had instructed the ship to find out what information it could gather about her new surroundings. To her surprise, the planet she had landed on was not documented on any map that Maul's ship contained. The ship stated that she was in what she had learned from Maul to be the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy. Undocumented planets, weird and unexplainable anomalies; the Unknown Regions could be a dangerous place for even the most veteran of space explorers, or so Maul's training had taught her. Apparently, the planet that housed Westeros was on nearly the other side of the Unknown Regions. How and why Maul was out that far in the first place when he had found her was a question she would ask him…if she ever saw him again.

When she landed the ship, she had planned to make camp just outside of it, but she knew that if the people tracking her had wanted to find her, the ship would be the obvious first place that they would look. The droid scouting party that arrived a day later told her that her instincts had been correct. So, she had kept a low profile and watched the droids from a distance before they had all abruptly left. After that, she had grabbed the pack containing the holocrons along with a pack of supplies and had begun scouting to see where she could build a camp that was close enough to the ship that she could get back to it quickly, but not too close that she would be in danger of being found. It was then that the missile attack had come. She had heard them enter the atmosphere and thought that maybe they were more droid drop ships, but they were moving much too fast, and she recognized them as being missiles from the training material on weapon types that Maul had forced her to study. Her last-second attempt to stop the missiles had saved her ship and her chances of getting off the planet.

While the missile attack was worrisome enough, there were two other things that worried her more. One was the dark force energy that was emanating from one of the ships that was orbiting the planet. Someone with a strong connection to the force was here for her. It wasn't Sideous. She would recognize the Sith Lord's force presence if she felt it again. However, it was someone with a similar force signature. Perhaps an apprentice of his? Whoever it was, she knew in the back of her mind she would probably end up having to deal with them before she left this planet.

The second thing that worried her was something slightly stranger. As soon as she had left hyperspace around this new planet's proximity, she could feel a force presence on it. The strange thing was, the force presence was not necessarily a dark presence, or a light presence. It just was. Out of everything that had happened in the last day, one thing was for certain. This new planet housed a mystery connected to the force, and Arya wasn't sure that she wanted to find out.

Dusk was quickly approaching, and Arya needed to get out of the open and into some shelter. So, she shouldered the pack of holocrons as well as her pack of supplies and turned on her heel, following the mountain ridge that hugged the immense forest she was in. Eventually she found what she was looking for – a cave in the mountainside. She set both packs she was carrying on the ground and pulled her lightsaber from her belt. The scan of the planet Maul's ship had done had indicated there was an immense amount of wildlife on the planet's surface. Thinking of the bears and dire wolves from her own planet had her on high-alert and the cave was a welcome sight. But, if there was one thing she had learned in her days on the road with the Hound, it was that if a place looks to be a convenient spot for shelter, then someone or something most likely had the same idea and was already there.

As quietly as she could, she snuck around to the side of the entrance and then peered around the corner into the darkness. All she could see was what looked like the orange dying embers of a fire. She was about to call to whoever was in the cave to come out, when a curious thing happened. The embers of the fire began separating themselves in pairs and spreading out through the cave. It was then that Arya realized what they were. Eyes. Pairs of orange glowing eyes contained within the skull of god know what type of beast. And it looked like there was a pack of them.

Arya remained as quite as possible and used the force to feel for the living things in the cave. But to her surprise, she found none. _What? How is that possible?_ She thought. Those were definitely eyes she had seen.

With inhuman speed, Arya rounded the corner to the cave and activated her lightsaber. The entire cave lit up in a brilliant red glow and Arya counted no less than eight creatures standing huddled together in the back portion of the cave. They were humanoid in their appearance, but each had jet black skin that was almost oily in its appearance and at the end of each muscular arm were four long, razor sharp-looking claws. The most unnerving part about them was their head which contained two small glowing orange eyes and a massive mouth that spanned from what would be ear to ear if these had been humans.

At the appearance of Arya, all eight of the creatures charged at her with their mouths open and their claws ready to strike. The screams emitted from their enormous mouths was almost loud enough to force Arya to drop her lightsaber and cover her ears. Her disorientation lasted for only a moment before she recovered. In a split second, Arya made a plan of attack in her mind and then began to execute it.

Jumping backwards, she removed herself from the small confines of the cave, giving her more ground to fight. The eight creatures followed her into the open air and spread out in an almost perfect semi-circle around her and began making strange clicking noises at each other. They began to advance on her perfect unison. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought they were just communicating with one another.

She sent a quick force blast to send the three creatures directly in front of her flying backwards. The blast was not nearly as strong as she would have liked due to her sapped force supply from trying to stop the missile attack. Next, she jumped to the side over two of the remaining four creatures. When she landed, all four of the remaining creatures were now on the same side of her. She emitted another force blast, but all four of the creatures slammed their claws into the ground and held on instead of being flung backwards. It was as if they knew the force blast was coming.

By this time, the first three creatures had returned to the fray and Arya used her lightsaber to make quick work of them. Cutting cleanly through their flesh, Arya noted that the other four were not advancing, but instead they were watching her with great interest while she dismembered their packmates. She rolled to the side and squared up on the last four. As she advanced, the closest creature jumped at her and she swung her lightsaber to decapitate it. Only, her lightsaber didn't slice cleanly through. Instead, the creature's long claws caught her blade and forced it backwards. Arya stalled for a second in shock and jumped backwards just as the creature's claw swung to disembowel her.

 _They can block lightsaber attacks with their claws?!_ She thought. The fight had just turned from dangerous to extremely deadly.

Arya remembered her training and focused on every deadly point on each monster. The creature's claws, teeth and rippling muscle were all locked away in her mind. She knew what to watch out for, now it was time to strike. She used the force to raise a veil of dust, shrouding herself from the creatures. As fast as she could, she burst through the veil and buried her lightsaber in the chest of the closest creature, the others jumping back defensively. She sprang off of the creature she had just slain before its trashing limbs with razor sharp claws could accidentally catch her.

The moment her feet hit the ground she could sense the claws from the other three creatures heading straight for her abdomen. She spun and deflected all three blows. Weaving in and out, she hardly managed to land a blow on these creatures. It was almost as if they knew when she would strike. As her attempts at killing the creatures failed repeatedly, Arya began to get frustrated, and then she got angry. She made an ill-advised thrust at one of the creatures and its claws nicked her forearm causing her to scream out in pain.

The other creatures sensed weakness and moved in even faster. Arya deflected most of their blows, but a few more managed to leave some painful cuts in her arms and legs. It was at this moment that Maul's voice sounded in her mind. _Use your anger as fuel, but do not lose focus. Anger gives your attacks power, but your focus allows you to land those attacks and do maximum damage._ Arya spun around quickly. It was almost as if Maul was standing behind her, growling his next bit of advice to the back of her as she faced whatever challenge he had set up for her in the training cave back on Dathomir. He was right though. She was being too brash in her anger and it had allowed the creatures to draw blood.

Arya turned and fled. As she ran, she swept some gravel off of the ground and threw it at the pursuing creatures, throwing an extra force push behind the small stones to give them deadly velocity. The creatures barely slowed as they ran after her. Still fleeing, a plan began to form in her mind as to how she was going to trick these creatures and gain the upper hand. She felt for her belt and pulled needle from its sheath. All at once she pulled up and spun. The creatures reared up in surprise as she dove towards the closest one. She swung her lightsaber down with one hand and the creature reached up with both claws to stop it. What it didn't stop was the point of Needle that Arya had in her off hand. She drove the pointy end up under its chin and out though the top of its head.

The other two stopped in surprise and started communicating with one another again. This time, it was the creatures who seemed angry. They both converged on her at once, but in their wild anger, their attacks became sloppy. Arya managed to sever the leg from one of the creatures before driving her lightsaber into its chest as it wailed on the ground.

The last creature, sensing it was now grossly outmatched, turned to run, but Arya threw her lightsaber point-first at the creature, using the force to guide the blade straight between its shoulder blades. The creature slumped to the ground as the blade retracted back into the hilt and flew towards Arya's open palm.

 _That, was unpleasant._ Arya thought.

She looked down at her wounds and noticed that she was actually losing quite a bit of blood from where the creatures had managed to cut her. She would need to get back to the cave and used the supplies she had brought in her pack to tend to her wounds.

Using the force, she picked the corpses of the slain creatures and brought them with her. Those massive claws that could deflect lightsaber would most definitely be useful if should could figure out what to do with them.

Back at the cave, Arya used the force to stack the corpses of the cave creatures just outside the cave entrance and then scouted the cave further before setting up here camp. The cave went back a surprising distance and eventually, Arya found a good spot to settle for the evening. She started a fire, tended to her wounds, and pulled some rations she had gotten from Maul's ship out of her pack. Laying her head back and holding tight to the pack of holocrons, Arya began to doze off in front of the fire she had built. It was then that a voice unlike any she had ever heard began to speak.

"That was an impressive display. Your connection of the dark side of the force is a thing of beauty, but you have much to learn."

Arya sprang up, her lightsaber activated and ready, but nothing was there. When the voice spoke again, it was as if the speaker had whispered intimately into her ear.

"Follow me."

Arya spun again, and this time she saw a small glowing yellow orb floating about two feet away. It took off towards the back portions of the cave. Arya grabbed the pack of holocrons and followed it.


	22. Author Update

Hello All, it's me the author.

Sorry the posting of new chapters has been so sporadic and infrequent lately. Life got crazy busy over the holidays, but things seem to be simmering down again so I'll be able to focus on this story more. I have a clear idea as to where the story will be heading, so I should be able to have more frequent updates.

The next chapter should be the end of this week barring any setbacks.

This is my first foray into fanfic, and so far I'm having a blast. Thanks everyone for reading and enjoying!

P.S. I'm not sure how to update followers besides posting a new chapter. If anyone knows of a better way, feel free to let me know. Thanks!


	23. Origins of an Order

Arya watched as the small glowing yellow orb rounded the last corner of the cave. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tried to keep up, she couldn't help but wonder if this were just some sort of dream or hallucination she was having. The only problem was that it felt too real.

As she followed the orb around the last corner, she found it hovering at eye level at the back wall of the cave. Standing there in a lengthening silence, Arya began to feel nervous about what would happen next. Yet, a few minutes passed, and nothing happened. She waited a while longer, when finally she began to feel awkward, and then annoyed. The orb floated there doing nothing, and she was wasting valuable time that could be used for sleep. She was about to walk away, when finally, it spoke again.

"Use the force to open the way." It said in what sounded like many voices layered on top of a single voice.

Arya started for a moment, startled by the sudden break in the silence, and then looked at the wall behind the orb. _Hmmm_. She thought. _It must be some kind of hidden passage that only force sensitives can find._

 _That is precisely what it is._ The orb said.

"Wha…you..you can hear my thoughts?" Arya said.

 _I can both hear and see far more than that._ The orb responded.

There wasn't much that surprised her anymore, so Arya simply nodded and turned her attention back to the wall. The wall looked like it was made of the same stone that the rest of the cave was, but as Arya's mind travelled along nooks and crannies of the rock, she found quickly that this back wall was hiding a passage of some sort. She delved her mind father into the rock until should could sense a contraption from within. The contraption felt to be made of two intricate halves. Activating both halves, Arya assumed, would most likely open the secret passage.

Arya focused on the right half of the contraption and it sprang immediately to life. _Hmm, that was easy_ , she thought. She let her mind feel over to the left half of the contraption and focused her force energy once more, but nothing happened. She tried focusing harder, but the harder she focused, the more the contraption seemed to resist her.

 _Having troubles?_ the orb asked, breaking Arya's concentration.

"What am I doing wrong?" she asked.

 _It is not what you are doing wrong, it is what you have been taught that betrays you. If you wish to open this passage, then you must use the force. But the force is a beautiful mix of light and dark. A dance between the evil and the good. Your strongest passions would overwhelm you if they were not checked by level-headedness and rationality. Balance, that is the key."_ After its speech, the orb floated in silence once more.

 _Balance… hmmm,_ Arya thought. She felt for the left side of the contraption in the wall once more. She tried, more gently this time, to activate the mechanism holding the passage shut. She used her force powers to caress the contraption, to softly coerce it into compliance. Still, nothing.

Arya was about to give up again, when she actually thought about what the orb had said to her. Balance. A mix of light and dark. Maul had told her that the dark side of the force would grant her powers beyond her wildest dreams. And that was true. She had become one with the dark side and it had given her the power she craved. But she had never tried, or even contemplated tapping into the light side. The side of the Jedi. How would that even work?

If Maul could conjure up the vilest experiences from her childhood to unlock the dark side within her, then maybe the opposite was true for the light side. So, she thought of the happiest moments she could. The day her brother Jon had given the sword Needle to her. Her father telling her he would let her train with Seiro Forel. Shooting archery in the training grounds back at Winterfell when her mother wasn't watching.

As Arya started to remember the happiest times of her life, memories she had locked away a long time ago, she began to reach out to the left side of the contraption again. A warmth, unlike anything she had ever felt, began to wash over her. It was the exact opposite of the cold yet powerful feeling that usually came with using the dark side. The contraption complied almost immediately. A loud clank echoed throughout the cave, and the back wall crumbled away to reveal an ornately decorated door. The door slid to the side revealing a large chamber on the other side.

Arya looked at the orb in wonder as it floated into the chamber beyond. Arya followed.

FIN

As Arya made her way further into the hidden chamber, she began to notice tables with all sorts of strange instruments cluttering them. There were also wall carvings depicting all sorts of rituals and experiments as well as strange glyphs, and oddly enough, they were glowing. It was a warm orange glow, almost as if it were being generated by torches or a fireplace, but there was no way to deny that it was distinctly coming from the lines on the carvings. Through this unnatural light, Arya was able to see the entire chamber.

As she studied her surroundings, the main thing Arya noticed, was that the chamber felt old. Not just old – ancient. If she had to guess, this was probably the oldest room she had ever been in. The main chamber itself was slightly smaller than the training cave Maul had brought her to back on Dathomir. At the back of the chamber was a small circular recess set into the wall. In this smaller circular chamber, there was a semicircle of very low seats all facing inward towards a small stone sphere at the center of the floor. The orb floated to one of the seats and landed on it.

Arya watched in awe as the orb transformed into a humanoid shape that looked as if it were made of the same transparent light that the orb had been. The light-figure was roughly human in size and shape and was covered in ornate robes. There were a few things that differentiated this being from a human, however. The head was oval in shape and extended on a neck that was just slightly too long. In place of a nose, two small slits sat at the middle of its face, and the being only had three long fingers on each hand. The being turned to face Arya and after a brief silence, it finally spoke.

 _Come, have a seat._ The light-figure's mouth did not move.

Hesitantly, Arya walked over to the circular chamber and took a seat across from the being. As she sat down, she the seat lifted off the ground until it was a comfortable height for her, the light-figure's seat did the same.

"What is this place?" she asked.

 _You currently reside in one of the great Tho Yor. This place was the beginning of the end for my kind, and part of the birthplace of what is now known as the Jedi Order._ The light-figure let the words sink in with Arya.

"Who are you then?" Arya asked.

 _I am the Prime Jedi. The first of our Order._ The light-figure's face didn't so much as flinch.

"You're the first Jedi?" Arya, said. Amazement and skepticism mixed in her voice.

 _Yes. At least I was. What you are communing with now is what is left of my force energy. My body died a long time ago, but through the force, my spirit has been allowed to remain on this plane of existence._

Arya let this all process in her mind for a while. The Prime Jedi didn't seem to mind the extended silence. So, if this spirit was to be believed, then she was talking to the very beginning of the Jedi Order, as well as the Jedi way of thinking. The longer she thought about what the spirit had just told her, the longer the list of questions grew in her mind.

"How could I just happen to land on the planet that houses the beginning of the Jedi Order?" Arya asked. "It wasn't like I was searching for you. It just so happened I needed to seek refuge in this area of the galaxy, and your planet was the closest habitable one to my location. This seems like too much of a coincidence."

 _The force has a strange way of connecting people." The Prime Jedi responded. "It may feel random to you or me, but there are always grander designs at play._

"Hmm, be that as it may, I have thought over what you've told me and found a glaring flaw." Arya was about to continue but the Prime Jedi cut her short.

 _I have heard your thoughts, and while they are well founded, I can explain._

With a flick of its wrist, the Prime Jedi used the force to lift the stone sphere that sat in the middle of the chamber and allowed it to float at eye level. After a moment, the sphere began to glow white.

 _The beginning of our order was founded on a planet far from here called Tython when the Tho Yor traveled throughout the galaxy and gathered force-sensitive species of all kinds and brought them together._

As the Prime Jedi spoke, the stone sphere pulsed with white light and then projected a holographic image of pyramid-shaped structures flying through space and eventually settling on an unknown world.

 _As our knowledge of the force increased, we decided to form an order on which to teach and educate others in the ways of the force. I have deduced from your thoughts that your problem with my identity is that I have spoken of the force as a balance of light and dark. Of good and evil. But you have been told that the Jedi Order only practices the light side of the force. That would be correct now, but when my colleagues and I first started the order, it was not focused solely on the light side of the force. It was founded on balance. Dark and light. Good and evil. When members of our order would fall to far to one side of the force, they would be exiled and forced to meditate until they could rebalance themselves._

The stone sphere's holographic projections changed with the story, almost as if it were projecting the thoughts of the Prime Jedi itself.

 _Through this balance we were able to achieve peace for thousands of years. It wasn't until certain factions within the Order began to identify exclusively with one side of the force or the other. This split in thinking fractured the Order and started the great Force Wars. The Jedi Order that you know now_ _were_ _the light side of that fracture, and when they were victorious, they vowed to practice only the light side of the force. When the Jedi of the present talk of bringing balance to the force, they do not actually mean it. What they want is the light side to dominate. They want to smother the darkness. But to truly bring balance, one must accept the dark with the light._

Arya digested the information in silence. She didn't bother to try and hide her thoughts; she knew the spirit would hear them.

"Well, that leaves me with one main question. What do you want with me?" Arya said.

 _If I told you I wanted nothing from you, that would be a lie. The force has brought us together for a purpose, and I believe that purpose is for me to set you on a new path._ The Prime Jedi said.

"What path is that?"

 _To bring balance to the force. True balance. Not the balance that the Jedi speak of by eliminating any presence of the darks side, but the balance that was once achieved by our ancient order. Bringing the light and the dark together. I can sense your power, even as you try to hide it, and I know that you are strong with the dark side of the force, or what my order called Bogan. But to live in true harmony, you will need to become strong with Ashla, or the light side, as well. If the light and the dark are always at war with one another, the galaxy, or even your own mind will never have peace. You must accept both and never let one overpower the other lest a divide forms in your mind. This is how you truly find not only power, but the ability to control it._

Arya felt a pang of annoyance. Here was someone else telling her how to live her life. Someone else tasking her with the impossible.

"Even if I am able to become a master of the light side, why would I want to help bring balance to the force? It wasn't so long ago that I had no idea any of this even existed. I was merely given the chance to gain the strength to destroy my enemies on my home planet. What's stopping me from going back there and staying for the rest of my days." Arya hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

 _Because, I have looked into your mind, and I have seen your thoughts and actions as of late. I know of your struggles. You know deep down that Sideous will not rest in his pursuit of your power. You've shown him that he cannot contend with you, and that as long as you are alive you will be a threat. Until that changes, he will not be able to comfortably reign over the galaxy as he so desires._

As the Prime Jedi said the next part, it actually stood up from its seat.

 _And there is the matter of the dark presence that I sense on your home world. A presence I had not felt until recently. Something tells me it is connected with your visit into the mind of the vile woman who is the source for all of your hatred._

Arya started at this new piece of information.

 _Yes, I know of your communion with the evil woman who plagues your thoughts and stokes your anger. But playing with powerful forces that you do not understand often ends in tragedy. There are dangers in every action, and sometimes the most benign act, such as visiting the mind of another, can have dire consequences."_

 _Cersei._ Arya thought. The piercing pain she felt when she had visited her mind the last time. She had been worried that something terrible and unnatural was at work there, but she hadn't had time to follow up with Cersei since she left with Maul for their heist in the Jedi Temple.

 _Yes. Cersei But I have a feeling she is not of her own autonomy anymore. I know your intent is to travel back to your planet, but be wary, it may not be the same as when you left it. Something evil is brewing there. I can sense it._

"I can't promise that I will bring balance to the force, or even that I have a desire to. I know now that the galaxy is a vast place and contains more than just my home world, but I want to start by bringing peace to my own planet and punish those who have wronged me."

Arya let herself get lost in thought for a moment. She knew the Prime Jedi was still reading her mind, but she didn't care. It felt like every day she was receiving new information, or discovering new things, and her mind was starting to have trouble keeping up. Life was so much simpler when it was just her, her trusty sword Needle, and a bag full of faces. How could she control the fate of the galaxy when the fate of her own family felt out of her reach.

 _You do not have to give me an answer, and there is nothing forcing you to accept the light with the dark. I only offer the knowledge that you can pursue a path that is different than only following the dark, or only following the light. The path of balance brought peace to my order for thousands of years. If it had not splintered from a divide between light and dark, or from people that believed in absolutes, then we may still be at peace to this day._

The Prime Jedi's form changed back into an orb as it said its next words to Arya.

 _The ones who seek out power are the ones who generally fall to the dark side, and those who live only by the light quite often find their life to have been passionless and unfulfilling. This strong connection to the force that you have been given is a gift that you can use in many different ways. I have watched the dark side consume every being that has let it take control, and I have watched every light side force user claim to use their power for good while committing horrible acts themselves. But rarely does a person accept both and live in true harmony. Take from our meeting what you will, but do not forget my words. Balance is the only way to true peace._

Arya watched as the orb began to dim.

"I don't know what to do. Help me." Arya said in desperation.

 _Only you can set yourself on the path you choose to take. My words are merely a guide. It is up to you to decide. Now go, the dark presence that followed you here approaches._ With that, the orb faded away along with the light that emanated from the stone sphere floating between them.

Arya stood and began to walk through the large main chamber back to the cave entrance as her mind raced with a million thoughts and emotions. The warm orange glow from the carvings on the walls did little to comfort her, and when she was about halfway through the large main chamber two figures entered from the passage where she had originally entered. One figure was an impeccably dressed man with a beard and crop of hair both white as snow. The other figure was much stranger. It was clearly a droid, but it had the eyes of a human and was covered in an immense cloak.

"You must be the girl that my master requires." The white-haired man's deep baritone voice echoed throughout the chamber. "What a strange place you've discovered. If I weren't here on business, I would love to scour through these ancient ruins. Unfortunately, as it turns out, your presence is required in quite a timely manner. So, you can either come with us quietly, or we can bring you to our master in a less comfortable manner."

Without hesitation, Arya pulled her lightsaber off of her belt and activated it, filling part of the chamber in an intense red glow that contrasted with the orange glow of the walls.

"I choose the less comfortable way." She said in a voice completely void of emotion.

With a tired sigh, the man pulled a curved lightsaber hilt from his own belt and activated it. Light from the long red blade added to the red glow of Arya's own lightsaber.

"My master ordered me to bring you in alive, but don't think for a second that means I won't kill you if I need to. An accidental death can always be covered up." The white-haired man said nodding to his droid companion.

Arya watched as the droid's two arms split in half lengthwise to become four. Arya didn't know how four arms would be any better than two in combat against an opponent wielding a lightsaber, but as the scene continued to unfold, she got her answer. The droid's four hands reached into its cloak and when they re-emerged, each held a lightsaber hilt. A chorus of hisses issued forth as the droid activated all four at once.

 _What in the Seven Hells?_ Arya thought. The fact that a droid was using a lightsaber was strange enough, but instead of red blades, the droid had a collection of blue and green lightsabers. Jedi colors. And there was also the fact that it had four. So now she had five blades she had to contend with instead of two. One of the blades was being wielded by a man who was extremely strong with the force, Arya could sense that almost immediately. And the other four blades were being wielded by a robot that could do adjusted calculations down to the nanosecond.

 _This could get out of hand fast._ Arya thought.

As she squared up on her opponents, Arya knew that either she would leave the chamber alive, or they would, but not both.

"Let's begin." The droid said in a gravelly voice.


End file.
